Opinions on Archie Shepp?

Nice to see Morley citing Centipede in his Polar Bear review in yesterday's OMM. Septober Energy doesn't entirely work but at its best it's a phenomenal thing (esp. side four with its "Hey Jude" singalong over 40-odd horns and strings freaking out).

the el-p blue series continuum album is definitely worth a listen if you can track down a copy.

(nick b reply)

yep i got sent a copy a couple of months ago. it's a bit like ornette's acoustic quartet gone glitch. the centipede/tortoise link in morley's omm review yesterday was inspired. definitely worth getting.

all of polar bear were on that paul the girl record from a couple of years back which no one seemed to like except me. kind of what i hoped the last pj harvey album would have been like.

In a bad way? In a good way? How can this NOT be in a good way? It makes me want to put it on and listen, anyway: it's a great line.

V4l Wilm3r (of all unexpected ppl, given her politix and who SHE interviewed and wrote abt) is always very forgiving of Larkin-the-critic: "He was writing about jazz when almost no one else was in Britain" being the gist of her line on him.

I'll take Pharoah Sanders or Marion Brown over Archie Shepp. And I'll take Larkin over any US poet/jazz critic...Kerouac? RJ Gleason?

Gawd-DAMN, that IS great poetry! (*Not that I have a clue about the stuff, o'course.)

"Ralph J. Gleason?!" [scoffs]

Although again, as mark said, it makes him sound GREAT! Immediately makes me think of that infamous "Afro-Blue" from Live At Birdland...

I'm basically always in the mood for version of Archie. Right now, this one is killing it (although Archie is hardly the only bit of awesomeness):
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vw6OpGtF1Ps/S_O34mz8_SI/AAAAAAAAAFk/fIxm4kaPmpM/s1600/mao1a.jpg

Too bad Shepp and Roach fell out: http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/775/775.F2d.452.84-1571.html

Is that a duo record?

Yep, it's a duo record.

This week I'm really feeling Life At The Donaueschingen Music Festival: http://www.discogs.com/Archie-Shepp-Life-At-The-Donaueschingen-Music-Festival/release/2425397

Basically a 44 minutes piece entitled "One for the Trane" split across two sides of vinyl. Incredible.

Here's the first side:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H1l7fq6Io0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwW2C4t8PI8

Mamma Too Tight is way underrated on this thread imo. Apologies if anyone thought this was an obit revive.

Magic of Ju-Ju is stellar. Brilliant running-or-cycling-through-busy-city music.

thanks for inspiring me to listen to Magic of Ju-Ju yesterday. It ruled.

Attica Blues is such an odd record. Bizarre to see it praised as his best upthread lol old ilm

There's good stuff on it sure, but some p dire stuff too. If I had to pick one it might be Blase tbh.

So many good ones in the late '60s and early '70s - The Way Ahead, Mama Too Tight, Blasé, The Magic of Ju-Ju, Live in San Francisco, Poem for Malcolm, Yasmina, a Black Woman...one that gets overlooked a lot is Archie Shepp and the Full Moon Ensemble, a double LP with Alan Shorter, Clifford Thornton, and a French rhythm section (Joseph Dejean on electric guitar, Beb Guerin on bass, and Claude Delcloo on drums).

I think another of his underrated albums is the Three For Freedom twin piano trio one with Waldron/Tchangodei, him and Waldron made a few fine duet albums and worked well together - not that I'm saying they are essential but they are personal faves.

81 years old today. The Magic of Ju-Ju may be one of the most remarkable tracks cut in the “New Thing” era.

been on a Shepp revival/new discovery thing lately

3 favorite songs all over 18 minutes:

"A Portrait of Robert Thomson (As a Young Man)"
"The Magic of Ju-Ju"
"Yasmina, A Black Woman"

saw this dude at jazzfest this year, he's so fuckin great

I interviewed him back in 2014. It was awesome. I'd love to talk to him again.

That may be the only interview where a) Archie is asked about Bill Dixon, and/or b) he actually mentions Bill Dixon.

Bill would get annoyed because interviewers always asked him about working with Archie; "Did you ever ask Archie about working with me?"

I still love his Three For Freedom lp with Mal Waldron and some mystery 2nd pianist called Tchangodei and the other downbeat and bluesy duo albums with Waldron of which I can't remember the names of!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/how-jazz-legend-archie-shepp-his-nephew-raw-poetic-and-a-cast-of-dc-musicians-teamed-up-for-an-experimental-improvised-album/2020/05/21/9d6e359c-991a-11ea-a282-386f56d579e6_story.html

The lessons he learned from Shepp’s records were finally put to use last year, when Moore and his octogenarian uncle officially collaborated for the first time during one marathon session at Blue Room Productions in Herndon, Va. The result is “Ocean Bridges,” a fully improvised album on which Moore, Shepp and DJ/producer/drummer/vibraphonist Damu the Fudgemunk (a.k.a. Earl Davis), along with several hip-hop and jazz scene stalwarts of the D.C. region, tap into both of those genres’ more experimental sides and ultimately find a sound that isn’t fully aligned with either one.

can't wait to hear this and Damu the Fudgemunk is such an inspired moniker!

http://rabrab.fi/Free-Jazz-Communism

Rab-Rab Press announces the publication of Free Jazz Communism, a new book actualising Archie Shepp–Bill Dixon Quartet at the 8th World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki 1962. Including archive material and documents, commissioned theoretical and historical texts, and interviews, the book edited by Sezgin Boynik and Taneli Viitahuhta contextualizes politics of free jazz music in light of global decolonisation movements, anti-war activism, structures of racial capitalism, and forms of avant-garde music.

By focusing on concerts of Shepp–Dixon Quartet, leading avant-garde jazz musicians from the US, in the socialist anti-colonial festival in Helsinki, the book is introducing complexities in the usual Cold War stories about the sixties, and pictures politics of jazz as something transcending boundaries of nation-state and capitalist market regulations.

Apart from the theoretical and historical overview by its editors, the book includes testimonies of the collective and international spirit of the 1962 Youth Festival, translated documents from Finnish press, a new interview with Archie Shepp, commissioned text by Jeff Schwartz on the historical context of political engagement of free jazz musicians, and reproduction of three hard-to-find texts by Shepp.

Wow! Thanks for tip on that. Ocean Bridges is indeed the shit, as I carried on about on Rolling Jazz; that and others are on bandcamp: https://bandcamp.com/search?q=Archie%20Shepp (Note to self;check that New York Contemporary 5 Vol. 2)
Yeah, also I second Attica Blues, much more varied than you might think from title, ditto Fire Music, also dig Steam, Sea of Faces, Little Red Moon, and the duo albums of vintage material w Horace Parlan, Going Home and Trouble in Mind (more of that in duet w Charlie Haden on CH's The Golden Number).

the contents of the book sound more interesting than the intro which reads like a parody of leftist boilerplate

Requested a review copy of that book; sounds really interesting.

do love the title track of Mama Too Tight.

aye, sick track is that!

sick album as well tbf

portrait of robert thompson is a wild ride

That book on the Helsinki festival is incredibly informative about the (apparently very strong) influence of the new music on early ‘60s Finnish youth culture, and the book is worth it for that contemporary perspective alone. The recent-ish Shepp interviews, however, aren’t particularly revealing, and the obvious question — “Given your stated commitment to political causes, why did you scab on the Jazz Composers Guild, telling the members it was now ‘every person for themselves’?” — goes unasked and unanswered.

i see that it's £30 on the rab-rab site, but was €15 on soundohm (now sold out). new copies on amazon start at $75. can anybody find a copy for sale (preferably in USA) for a more reasonable price ?

His embouchure was reportedly messed-up for a while, but I missed that, except the first note of his "Memories" solo is odd, but rest of it works (it better, being historical: first released track by Whitney Houston!)

I didn't realize he was active (or at least sporadically active) on social media, but here's Shepp back in late March:

https://www.facebook.com/ArchieShepp.official/videos/746995829386346/

Can’t believe I ignored Life at the Donaueschingen Music Festival this long

Shepp is on two tracks of this new xpost Raw Poetic alb:
https://rawpoetic.bandcamp.com/album/space-beyond-the-solar-system
And quite a few other joints on Bandcamp, incl. a New York Contemporary Five round-up and their original album: https://bandcamp.com/search?q=Archie%20Shepp

Shepp’s (and everyone else’s) BYG/Actuel recordings are being reissued, apparently mastered from the original tapes. I recently got the CD of Blasé and it does sound better than the older CD issue (and original BYG vinyl pressings were inconsistent at best).

https://bygrecords.bandcamp.com

https://www.bygrecords.com/actuel-series

At least some of the digital versions of the BYG records were taken from noisy vinyl copies.