Shepp Cunningham

All CD's remastered by Erick Labson using 20-bit Super Mapping except ON THIS NIGHT remastered by Paul Elmore. (Erick Labson's name is spelled as "Eric Labson.")
ON THIS NIGHT uses the 1993 CD master but removes the bonus track "Malcolm, Malcom, Semper Malcolm" because the exact same recording is on FIRE MUSIC, which is also included in this set. This is noted on the CD sleeve except that it incorrectly states that the track is on MAMA TOO TIGHT.

At various times in his long career, saxophonist, composer, playwright, and educator Archie Shepp has been regarded as a musical firebrand, cultural radical, soulful throwback to the jazz tradition, contemplative veteran explorer, and global jazz statesman…

From 1964, Archie Shepp's first date as a leader featured – as one would expect from the title – four tunes by John Coltrane, his mentor, his major influence, and his bandleader. The fact that this album holds up better than almost any of Shepp's records nearly 40 years after the fact has plenty to do with the band he chose for this session, and everything to do with the arranging skills of trombonist Roswell Rudd. The band here is Shepp on tenor, John Tchicai on alto, Rudd on trombone, Trane's bassist Reggie Workman, and Ornette Coleman's drummer Charles Moffett. Even in 1964, this was a powerhouse, beginning with a bluesed-out wailing version of "Syeeda's Song Flute." This version is ingenious, with Shepp allowing Rudd to arrange for solos for himself and Tchicai up front and Rudd punching in the blues and gospel in the middle, before giving way to double time by Workman and Moffett. The rawness of the whole thing is so down-home you're ready to tell someone to pass the butter beans when listening.

At various times in his long career, saxophonist, composer, playwright, and educator Archie Shepp has been regarded as a musical firebrand, cultural radical, soulful throwback to the jazz tradition, contemplative veteran explorer, and global jazz statesman…

At various times in his long career, saxophonist, composer, playwright, and educator Archie Shepp has been regarded as a musical firebrand, cultural radical, soulful throwback to the jazz tradition, contemplative veteran explorer, and global jazz statesman…

Archie Shepp (born May 24, 1937, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA) is an African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African people, as well as for his work with The New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and his collaborations with his "New Thing" contemporaries, most notably Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane.

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…