Happy birthday, Archie Shepp! From WGBH, hear Shepp paint a vivid picture of what it was like to make music in the avant-garde/free-jazz era of the 1960s, and give insight into teaching jazz on the college level.
Archie Shepp’s Converging Paths of Politics and Music
In Reese Erlich’s audio interview from jazzcorner.com, Archie Shepp wastes no time explaining in stark terms how politics entered his life, and steered him on his musical path, including his sessions with John Coltrane.
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The Sound and Times of Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp has always seemed larger than life. This wide-ranging interview by Richard Scheinin of the San Jose Mercury News vividly captures Shepp’s scale and humanity, as a jazz saxophonist living in large times, developing his own distinctive sound, and as a person of color living a life of conscience in turbulent times: what he thought then, and what he thinks now.
-Nick Moy
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blasé // archie shepp // blasé
It’s tough to beat Malachai Favor’s dangling superstructure twisting in the wind, Philly Joe Jones’ beleaguered fumbling, or Jeanne Lee’s searing, smiling indictment, but somehow the man rises to meet them, at least. Happy birthday!
John Coltrane with Archie Shepp, Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1965. Photo by Chuck Stewart.
Archie Shepp on John Coltrane and Malcolm X - “I equate Coltrane’s music very strongly with Malcolm’s language, because they were just about contemporaries, to tell you the truth. And I believe essentially what Malcolm said is what John played. If Trane had been a speaker, he might have spoken somewhat like Malcolm. If Malcolm had been a saxophone player, he might have played somewhat like Trane.”
Morning session…
Archie Shepp - Four For Trane(Impulse Records)
