Archie Shepp: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• Videos
• Photos
• Groups/Boards
• Fan Sites

• Frank Wright
• Roscoe Mitchell
• David Murray
• Marion Brown
• Pharoah Sanders
• Noah Howard
• Joseph Jarman

• Ornette Coleman
• John Coltrane
• Charlie Parker
• Cecil Taylor
• Sonny Rollins
• Coleman Hawkins
• Ben Webster

• Sirone
• David Murray
• Dave Burrell
• Ganelin Trio
• Jan Garbarek
• Brian Glick
• Dudu Pukwana

• Bobby Few
• Perry Robinson
• Joe Lee Wilson
• Ray Copeland
• Zusaan Kali Fasteau
• The Sea Ensemble

Born:

May 24, 1937 in Fort Lauderdale, FL

Genres:

Jazz Music, Avant Garde Jazz Music, Big Band Jazz Music, Bop Jazz Music, Fusion Jazz Music, Classical Music, Free Jazz Music

Decades Active:

1960's|1970's|1980's|1990's|2000's

Artistic Quality

High

Cultural Impact

High

Popularity

High

Ratings Guide

Archie Shepp has been at various times a feared firebrand and radical, soulful throwback and contemplative veteran. He was viewed in the '60s as perhaps the most articulate and disturbing member of the free generation, a published playwright willing to speak on the record in unsparing, explict fashion about social injustice and the anger and rage he felt. His tenor sax solos were searing, harsh and unrelenting, played with a vivid intensity. But in the '70s, Shepp employed a fatback/swing-based RB approach, and in the '80s he mixed straight bebop, ballads and blues pieces displaying little of the fury and fire from his earlier days. Shepp studied dramatic literature at Goddard College, earning his degree in 1959. He played alto sax in dance bands and sought theatrical work in New York. But Shepp switched to tenor, playing in several free jazz bands. He worked with Cecil Taylor, co-led groups with Bill Dixon and played in The New York Contemporary Five with Don Cherry and John Tchicai. He led his own bands in the mid-'60s with Roswell Rudd, Bobby Hutcherson, Beaver Harris and Grachan Moncur III. His Impulse albums included poetry readings and quotes from James Baldwin and Malcolm X. Shepp's releases sought to paint an aural picture of African-American life, and included compositions based on incidents like Attica or folk sayings. He also produced plays in New York among them "The Communist" in 1965, and "Lady Day: A Musical Tragedy" in 1972 with trumpeter/composer Cal Massey. But starting in the late '60s, the rhetoric was toned down and the anger began to disappear from Shepp's albums. He substituted a more celebratory, and at times reflective attitude. Shepp turned to academia in the late '60s, teaching at SUNY in Buffalo, then the University of Massachusetts. He was named an associate professor there in 1978. Shepp toured and recorded extensively in Europe during the '80s, cutting some fine albums with Horace Parlan, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen and Jasper van't Hof. He has recorded extensively for Impulse, Byg, Arista/Freedom, Phonogram, Steeplechase, Denon, Enja, EPM and Soul Note among others over the years.Unfortunately his tone declined from the mid-1980's on (his highly original sound was his most important contribution to jazz) and Archie Shepp is a less significant figure in the 1990's than one might hope.

- Ron Wynn and Scott Yanow, All Music Guide