Archie Shepp, Fire Music

Archie Shepp, Fire Music

Audio CD

Disk ID: 285885

Disk length: 39m 49s (5 Tracks)

Original Release Date: 1989

Label: Unknown

View all albums by Archie Shepp...

Tracks & Durations

Note: The information about this album is acquired from the publicly available resources and we are not responsible for their accuracy.

Review

Tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp was an essential voice in the revolutionary jazz of the 1960s, creating a music that insistently linked art and social issues. He was also a musician who fused the past and present in jazz, leapfrogging over bebop to develop a sound that combined the expressive breathiness of Ben Webster with the new vocabulary of free jazz. Those qualities are much in evidence in these 1965 sessions. The principal band here is a sextet, and it brings a primal force to Shepp's charging, complex, multidimensional compositions. But within this potent brew, individual voices distinguish themselves. Altoist Marion Brown's lines always invoke the blues, while trumpeter Ted Curson, a veteran of Charles Mingus's bands, provides a sense of detached perspective. The riffing horns create a backdrop for some of Shepp's most volatile orations on "Hambone" and "Los Olvidados" as his tenor seems to shout, shriek, strut, and cajole with a life of its own. A live septet version of "Hambone" is even more turbulent than the studio take. The rest of the CD heads off in a variety of directions. Duke Ellington's "Prelude to a Kiss" is recast with some fresh dissonance. Taking his initial cues from Webster, Shepp goes on to turn the ballad into something very much his own, though still Ellingtonian in spirit. His arrangement of "Girl from Ipanema" adds unlikely fire to the Jobim tune, while "Malcolm," a poem inspired by the assassination of Malcolm X, has Shepp's voice and tenor accompanied by just bass and drums. While these diversions might now seem forced or melodramatic, Fire Music is a varied CD that retains much of its original power. --Stuart Broomer

Other Versions

Albums are mined from the various public resources and can be actually the same but different in the tracks length only. We are keeping all versions now.

Please note: we do not provide any Archie Shepp music downloads, have no any mp3 music including music samples and music ringtones, and can not assist you where to buy music CDs and used CDs. You can search for it on music sites all over the Internet or visit one of our advertisers. We appreciate any ideas and comments about this experimental music database.