Circular Temple is an album by American jazz pianist Matthew Shipp featuring his trio with bassist William Parker and drummer Whit Dickey, which was recorded in 1990 and released on the tiny label Quinton Records.

[2] According to David Fricke, "the opening keyboard motif finds the pianist twisting a riff marriage of Bud Powell's 'Dance of the Infidels' and Thelonious Monk's 'Well, You Needn't'.

In his book Visions of Jazz: The First Century, Gary Giddins says "If you think there's nothing to be done with Monk but play his tunes, listen to parts two and four of Shipp's Circular Temple, in which he adduces his own Monkian theme with percussive certainty.

"[4] The Penguin Guide to Jazz wrote that this album and the previous one, Points, "takes some clues from the avant-garde past – Taylor, Bley, and Shipp's personal favorite, Andrew Hill – while going their own way in a quite dramatic fashion moment to moment.

"[6] The album garnered a lead review in Rolling Stone by David Fricke, who wrote: "Even at his most extreme, as in the tidal waves of block-chord fury in "Circular Temple #1" Shipp never resorts to cheap anarchy, preferring the rigorously sculpted discord that Jimi Hendrix aspired to on the guitar.