Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Archie Shepp: Kwanza

189

Archie Shepp: Kwanza

By

Sign in to view read count
Archie Shepp: Kwanza
Albert Ayler flamed like phosphorous for a few years, spoke like an Old Testament prophet, wore leather trousers and died young in mysterious circumstances. Archie Shepp burned just as bright, but has lived to a ripe age, growing to embrace the mainstream, and has had one foot in academe for much of his career. The two saxophonists, along with John Coltrane, personified the Impulse! label during its giddy zenith, but Ayler's highly marketable legend, now of mythic proportions, has grown to overshadow Shepp's contributions to the label and the "new thing."

Kwanza catches Shepp at his most funked up and glorious. It was recorded over four sessions, between September 1968 and August 1969, a time when psychedelia and Blackism's twin recalibrations of jazz convention were at their most fervid. Primal R&B values were fascinating the avant-garde, along with what would now be called world music and an avowed, Maoist anti-intellectualism (the latter essentially an affectation, and one hilariously observed by Tom Wolfe in Radical Chic And Mau-Mauing The Flak Catchers, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970).

Shepp, though himself an intellectual, was part of this back-to-the-roots-and-outwards movement. Kwanza, and the nearly contemporaneous The Way Ahead (Impulse!, 1968), recorded with the same core musicians, were his mature statements in a trajectory which had hit the backbeat with the New Orleans fonk-informed Mama Too Tight (Impulse!, 1966).

Surrounding himself with the cream of the "new thing" players, Shepp maintained his commitment to free and collective improvisation, but combined it now with structured arrangements rooted in gospel and the blues. Bass ostinatos, keyboard vamps and drum backbeats drive the music, along with raw R&B horn charts and sweating, testifying horn solos.

Ace fellow travellers like organist/pianist Dave Burrell, trombonist Grachan Moncur III and trumpeter Jimmy Owens help Shepp keep the unexpected happening against these repititious, cyclical structures. First-generation bebop baritone saxophonist Cecil Payne, a relative old-timer here, blows his fine wild heart out on Cal Massey's "Bakai."

Kwana is roughly contemporaneous with Ayler's most considered R&B statement, New Grass (Impulse!, 1968), whose visceral passion it approaches without wholly abandoning the cerebral in the process. There are close affinities too with the work of some artists on the post-Alfred Lion, late-1960s Blue Note label, recently compiled on the double-disc set Righteousness. A great little chunk of history, and with the power still to move the listener.

Track Listing

Back Back; Spoo Pee Doo; New Africa; Slow Drag; Bakai.

Personnel

Archie Shepp
saxophone, soprano

Archie Shepp: tenor saxophone, vocal (3); Jimmy Owens: trumpet (1,3); Martin Banks: trumpet (2); Woody Shaw: trumpet (4); Grachan Moncur 111: trombone (1,3); Matthew Gee: trombone: (4); James Spaulding: alto saxophone (1); Clarence Sharpe: alto saxophone (4); Charles Davis: baritone saxophone (1,3); Cecil Payne: baritone saxophone (4); Robin Kenyatta: flute (2); Dave Burrell: organ (1), piano (3); Andrew Bey: piano (2); Cedar Walton: piano (4); Wally Richardson: guitar (1); Bert Payne: guitar (2); Bob Busnell: bass (1); Albert Winston: bass (2); Walter Booker: bass (3); Wilbur Ware: bass (4); Bernard Purdie: drums (1); Beaver Harris: drums (2,3); Joe Chambers: drums (4); Leon Thomas, Tasha Thomas, Doris Troy: vocals (2).

Album information

Title: Kwanza | Year Released: 2006 | Record Label: Impulse!

Comments

Tags


For the Love of Jazz
Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who create it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

You Can Help
To expand our coverage even further and develop new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for a modest $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination will vastly improve your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

What Was Happening
Bobby Wellins Quartet
Laugh Ash
Ches Smith
A New Beat
Ulysses Owens, Jr. and Generation Y

Popular

Eagle's Point
Chris Potter
Light Streams
John Donegan - The Irish Sextet

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.