Archie Shepp

Archie Shepp – Live At The Panafrican Festival (1971/2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 46:48 minutes | 515 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Charly | BYG

Shepp participated in the sessions for Coltrane’s A Love Supreme in late 1964, but none of the takes he participated in were included on the final LP release (they were made available for the first time on a 2002 reissue). However, Shepp, along with Tchicai and others from the Four for Trane sessions, then recorded Ascension with Coltrane in 1965, and his place alongside Coltrane at the forefront of the avant-garde jazz scene was epitomized when the pair split a record (the first side a Coltrane set, the second a Shepp set) entitled New Thing at Newport released in late 1965.

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Archie Shepp – True Blue (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:09 minutes | 1,56 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Venus Records, Inc.

This 1998 studio recording by tenor sax legend Archie Shepp is a study in blues and ballads as the title might suggest, but it also marks the return of Shepp as a true bandleader. With pianist John Hicks, drummer Billy Drummond, and bassist George Mraz, Shepp sounds more inspired here than he has in literally decades. There is no crutch-like reliance on hard bop and blues stylings, nor is there any over-the-shoulder tosses at being the king of the avant-garde. Instead Shepp focuses on what he does best: being a fine stylist and one of the great blues phraseologists in the business. Opening with Coltrane’s “Lonnie’s Lament,” Shepp goes one better than just saluting his old boss – he reharmonizes the tune and slows it down, making it a true elegy.

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Archie Shepp – Poem For Malcom (1969/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 32:38 minutes | 732 MB | Genre: Free jazz & Avant-garde
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BYG Records

Poem for Malcolm is a jazz album by Archie Shepp. Recorded in Paris in August 1969 only two days after Yasmina, a Black Woman, it again features musicians from the Art Ensemble of Chicago. This time, the tone is resolutely set to avant garde and free jazz, with a political edge in the all but explicit tribute to Malcolm X. It was originally issued on CD by Affinity (paired with Yasmina, a Black Woman) mastered from a vinyl source and later reissued by Charly (also paired with Yasmina, a Black Woman) from the original master tapes.

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Archie Shepp – Blasé (Remastered) (1969/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:50 minutes | 728 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BYG Records

Digitally mastered from original BYG tapes by Nick Robbins. Florida-born saxophonist, composer, poet, actor and playwright Archie Shepp was one of the most articulate exponents of politicized black culture in the late ‘60s, a time of enormous upheaval and radical thought.

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Archie Shepp – Yasmina, A Black Woman (Remastered Audiophile Edition) (1969/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:13 minutes | 874 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BYG Records

Of all the African-American jazz musicians who arrived in Paris at the end of the ‘60s Saxophonist Archie Shepp was arguably the most influential. Still resident in the French capital to this day, he became an integral part of the European scene and struck fruitful working relationships with the likes of German pianist Joachim Kuhn. Shepp also recorded important albums for BYG, and Yasmina, A Black Woman is one of the most compelling from both an intellectual and musical point of view.
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Archie Shepp – Vol. 2 (Remastered) (1964/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 41:00 minutes | 894 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Storyville Records

ReMaster of this 1964 LP by tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp recorded at the end of a string of engagements throughout the Scandinavian countries. His New York Contemporary Five group also included Don Cherry, John Tchicai, Don Moore and J.C. Moses. ‘Vol. 2’ captures this group of young musicians seeking new musical ground, having found a welcoming environment far from home.
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Archie Shepp – Live at the Donaueschingen Music Festival (1967/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 44:02 minutes | 829 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS

The important tenor Archie Shepp and his 1967 group romp through the continuous 43-and-a-half-minute “One for the Trane” before an enthusiastic audience at a German music festival. Although he improvises very freely and with great intensity, Shepp surprised the crowd by suddenly bursting into a spaced-out version of “The Shadow of Your Smile” near the end of this memorable performance. On the whole, this very spirited set represents avant-garde jazz at its peak and Archie Shepp at his finest. This is an exciting album.
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Archie Shepp – Let My People Go (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:34:42 minutes | 957 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Archieball

Among the many facets of Archie Shepp’s distinguished career, it is notable that since his solo debut in 1964, he has been gigging and recording at a near-constant pace. For an 83-year-old saxophone player specializing in provocative and boundary-challenging improvisation, this is impressive enough, but that Shepp’s creative, intellectual, and political fire has in 50-plus years remained undimmed, well, that is remarkable indeed. Throughout those years, Shepp has always been an enthusiastic collaborator, working extensively with Cecil Taylor and Don Cherry, as well as more occasional meetings with the likes of Mal Waldron, Max Roach, and Horace Parlan, and cross-genre explorations with Frank Zappa, Material, and others. He is a player whose confidence in his style and musical language allows him to not only share a spotlight, but also to seek out co-conspirators to broaden his sonic palette. In the 21st century, Shepp’s recording pace has not slowed, but his interest in collaborations seems to have accelerated; more than half of his releases over the last two decades have seen him partnered up. This album, the latest such release, finds him working with Jason Moran, whose modernist, New York-centric take on post-bop has made him one of the most critically acclaimed jazz pianists of the last 20 years. Moran’s musical vocabulary is as broad and deep as Shepp’s, and the two also clearly share an intellectual and ideological affinity when it comes to creative and cultural work. So it is both somewhat surprising and completely on-brand that on their debut duet album, the two aim straight for the songbook, taking on a clutch of standards that have often been handled competently, if not interestingly, in lesser hands. With these two, pieces like “Lush Life” easily unshackle themselves from decades of overplay and sound reinvigorated. The easy, restrained interplay between the enormous tone of Shepp’s saxophone and Moran’s melodic and exploratory piano finds the two charting their own courses through these pieces, and when Shepp starts singing on “Go Down Moses” and “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child,” an entirely new dimension is added. It would have been quite easy for Shepp and Moran to romp through well-trod pieces like “Round Midnight” with gleeful abandon, but instead, they take a more focused and politically interrogatory approach to the material, resulting in an intelligent, emotional, evocative,and, yes, another remarkable addition to Shepp’s voluminous discography. – Jason Ferguson
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Archie Shepp – Emotions (Remastered) (1963/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 41:24 minutes | 1,48 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © 2xHD – Storyville Records

Saxophonist Archie Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, His tenor sax solos were searing, harsh, and unrelenting, played with a vivid intensity while he was viewed as perhaps the most articulate and disturbing member of the free generation. In this album he performs with the avant-garde jazz ensemble The New York Contemporary Five, “a group which, despite its short lease on life, has considerable historical significance”, laying “the cornerstone of what might be called the mainstream of free jazz”.
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Archie Shepp – Archie Shepp (Live in Paris 1974) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 47:45 minutes | 586 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Transversales Disques

Archie Shepp’s 1974 Paris concert is being released for the first time, straightforwardly titled Live in Paris (1974), via Transversales Disques this July.

The album features excerpts from his performance at Grand Auditorium Studio 104 in Paris during March 1974.
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