Archie Shepp

I have been loading some Shepp onto my Live365 station.  Today I put up 'Emotions', from Don Cherry Live in Europe '64.  Shepp is listed as the leader in some accounts.  It's basically the same combo as recorded Shepp's seminal album The New York Contemporary Five.   Shepp on tenor, John Tchicai on alto, Cherry on cornet.  The New York album is one of those that belongs in any modest jazz collection.  The '64 recordings are priceless because they further document a band that had no commercial potential.  

I also uploaded 'Hambone' from Shepp's wonderful album Fire Music.  This is raw, dig down along the live wire avant garde.   Here's the band:

• Alto Saxophone – Marion Brown
• Bass – Reggie Johnson (tracks: A1, A2, B2, B3)
• Drums – Joe Chambers (tracks: A1, A2, B2, B3)
• Tenor Saxophone – Archie Shepp
• Trombone – Joseph Orange
• Trumpet – Ted Curson

I'll let that stand for now.   Oh, okay, here's one more.  I love this duet album with Shepp and Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen.  It's a great horn/bass duo.  I am playing 'Billie's Bounce' from Looking at Bird. 

The Way Ahead

Okay, there it was.  Sitting in the top left hand corner of my blessed Penguin Guide.  Page one thousand, one hundred, and something.  Archie Shepp's The Way Ahead.  I can't say why I ignored it until now.  I have Shepp's famous 1964 recordings: Four for Trane, The New York Contemporary Five, and some others.  This one from 1968 is close to ground zero.  

Well, I have it now.  It is vintage Shepp, raw, wild, and uncompromising, like someone trying to punch his way out of jail cell.  If you the 64 recordings and would fight to give them up, you'll want this one too.  If you think that Shepp is all about noise, you will still want to hear the opening number.  It is so spectacularly good that this one number would suffice to demonstrate Shepp's genius.  Here it is:

Archie Shepp/Damn if I Know/The Way Ahead

And here is the lineup, courtesy of the Jazz Discography:

Jimmy Owens (tp) Grachan Moncur III (tb) Archie Shepp (ts) Walter Davis Jr. (p) Ron Carter (b) Roy Haynes (d -1,4) Beaver Harris (d -2,4)

Now I admit that one think that caught my eye was the presence of Grachan Moncur III.  I have been paying a lot of attention to this trombone wizard lately.  Well, it is Father's Day, and I had a few bucks to spend.  So I spent them on Shepp's album and on Moncur's Exploration.  

At least two numbers on the latter were worth whatever you have to pay.  'Love and Hate' is one of the pieces that stops you in your tracks.  What am I listening to?  How can I possibly get more of it?  If you want to hear it, sorry.  You'll have to pony up for the recording.  It's on eMusic, and you can get it from Amazon.  

But here is a piece from the album, a composition that also appears on the Shepp album.  It will give you some idea what this is worth.  

Grachan Moncur III Octet/Frankenstein/Exploration

 Go for it. 

Archie Shepp and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen

I have a fondness for Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen that goes back three decades.  In my early years as a jazz fan I collected Oscar Peterson records.  Peterson and Pedersen were inseparable for a while.  I have a fondness for Archie Shepp that goes back, well, at least a couple of years.


Shepp has the status of a great innovator, and he deserves it.  He also works the saxophone like a dowager, always finding God's own water under any sandy surface.  His New York Contemporary Five and Four For Trane recordings, in that order, are essential pieces in any collection.  I haven't followed Pedersen well enough to say anything useful about him.  But he is clearly a master.


I recently acquired a duet album recorded by Shepp and Pedersen, Looking at Bird.  Even with a piano, jazz duets tend to be a bit dry.  They are works of love for lovers.  With a horn and bass, the music approaches a dry martini joke.  But this recording of Charlie Parker compositions is wonderful.  You can't do better if you want to taste the alchemy of a consummate jazz conversation.  The two play as if they were doing a Vulcan mind meld sort of thing.  And the texture of both instruments is recorded remarkably well.  This is the true water.  Here is a sample:

Archie Shepp & Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen/Billie's Bounce/Looking at Bird

 I have been getting a lot of traffic lately, but few comments.  Comment. 

St. James Infirmary

I am one of those who hold that you haven't really ever heard 'St James Infirmary' until you have listened to it sitting on a wooden bench in the Jazz Preservation Hall in New Orleans, played by no less than five trombones. Having had such an experience, I am in a position to speak. Perhaps there are other venues that rival that one, but the standard is set very high.

I love terms like "neoclassical" when applied to jazz. That's because I am a political theorist, inclined to classification. I know that it is a squishy term in music, but it makes sense when applied to jazz men like David Murray, who make avant garde scarecrows out of every bit of straw the tradition leaves in its path. It also applies obviously to Archie Shepp.

Shepp's California Meeting is fine bit of live jazz. In addition to the above mentioned song, it has 'A Night In Tunisia' and Trane's 'Giant Steps.' George Cables plays piano, Herbie Lewis is on bass, Eddie Marshall on drums, and Royal Blue sings on 'Saint James.'

This is one of those albums you might easily pass over at a yard sale. Don't. It is genuine twenty-four karot jazz. Here is the gem:

Archie Shepp/St. James Infirmary/California Meeting

If you like it, get the whole thing. Meanwhile, let me know what you think!