Live in San Francisco

Artist: Archie Shepp
Label: Grp Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Live
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 011105025423
EAN: 0011105025423
ASIN: B0000065KM

Release Date: 1998-03-10

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Good Stuff

Tracks:

Keep Your Heart Right
Lady Sings The Blues
Sylvia
The Wedding
Wherever June Bugs Go
In A Sentimental Mood
Things Ain't What They Used To Be
Three For A Quarter, One For A Dime

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The Way Ahead
Four for Trane
Three for Shepp
Mama Too Tight
The Cry of My People

Customer Reviews:

Threadbare.......2004-12-21

I'm not much of a Shepp fan, though I like _Four for Trane_; I picked this one up (four stars in the _Penguin Guide_) in hopes it'd begin to win me over. Hmmmmmm. As usual for Impulse! discs the original LP was very short--a bit over half an hour--& given that the feature for Shepp's charming but off-kilter pianoplaying (the Paul Robeson-associated tune "Sylvia") & a plummyvoiced poetry-&-music recital occupy nearly 9 minutes of the album together, I can't imagine that I'd have been too happy if I got this album in its original incarnation. But the CD reissue adds an unreleased "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" & the shapeless but energetic 33-minute free blow "Three for a Quarter, One for a Dime" (originally released as an album in itself) so no complaints about running time.

It's not exactly a primo rhythm section. There are two prevailing schools of thought about the drummer, Beaver Harris: either he's pleasantly loose, or he's just sloppy & hamfisted. I don't mind him, really, but the limping dull-toned bass accompaniment (courtesy Donald Garrett and Lewis Worrell, sometimes together but often taking turns) is just plain terrible: they make a hash of the complex changes to "Lady Sings the Blues", & manage even to sound ineffectual on the blues "Wherever June Bugs Go". (One of the bassists--which one?--often spends ages stuck on the same four descending notes.) Tempos are sometimes unsteady and this never exactly swings, so on the whole I'm happiest on the one free piece, "Three for a Quarter", where they just go for it, even if it's just a shapeless bash & Shepp won't shut up. Shepp's winning card is always going to be his splendidly hoarse, rasping sound on tenor: plenty of it here, & also a few striking moments, like the calculated affront of the hyperactive intro to "In a Sentimental Mood". But the best player on the date without a doubt is trombonist Roswell Rudd, whose sharp commentaries cut effortlessly through the general bleariness & at-sea-ness.

This one really requires a sympathetic ear--maybe if you're already won over by Shepp it sounds great, but to these ears it's pretty unremarkable.

free jazz and tradition.......2001-09-16

Three of these eight tunes are standards; it may seem curious for a free jazz recording of the late sixties,no ? It was recorded February 19,1966, and I was three days old.Archie Shepp's music of that time isn't easy to listen to;more difficult than Coltrane's music.But there is always links to the tradition,and to the great ancesters.In this record,there are outstanding musicians: Beaver Harris on drums,rather a colorist than a drummer,just like Sam Woodyard in Duke Ellington's band;Don Garrett on bass,who played with Roland Kirk and Coltrane,and who does fine job,even if he doesn't reach the level of Cameron Brown in his 70's efforts with Shepp;and Roswell Rudd on trombone,an heir of Tricky Sam Nanton and Dickie Wells.In this record, Shepp pays tributes to two great composers,Duke Ellington ("in a sentimental mood" and "things ain't what they used to be",althouth this one was written by Duke's son,Mercer),and Herbie Nichols ("lady sings the blues",a tune Nichols wrote for Billie Holiday).Shepp also plays a great ballad on piano,"Sylvia".There are shadows of Teddy Wilson and Duke in his piano playing.Shepp's version of "in a sentimental mood",a haunting tune written by Duke (Duke recorded it with Coltrane a few years before),is outstanding.Listening to him,we can hear Hawkins,Ben Webster, and all the history of tenor sax.You can call it "free jazz",if you wish;to me it's only a great hour in the jazz history,recorded at a time when things were not easy for black people in America (are they now???).This is strong,brutal,offensive music,but most of all, living music,with urgence and violence, a beautiful human cry that,35 years later, is always as vital as it was,February 19,1966.

Challenging,passionate music of the sixties.......1999-01-14

Archie Shepp has always been a musical hero of mine. His tenor can sound as beautiful as any tenor sound in jazz as it does on TROUBLE IN MIND and GOIN' HOME (1979). But it can also be raw and passionate as it is on LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO. This music is of its time but still worth listening to fuelled as it is by anguish, anger and a profound sense of injustice at being black in America. Charlie Parker said " if you don't live it it won't come out of your horn" and Archie Shepp was one of the great exemplars of that saying - he spoke to and of the sixties through his music as much as Martin Luther King did in his way. This is challenging music -it's not sweet music. It's passionate, proud and intelligent music. It is music which says ATTENTION MUST BE PAID. There are two full LPs on this 20 bit remastered and bautifully packaged CD. Both were recorded at BOTH/AND CLUB in SAN FRAN on Feb 19, 1966. The second LP was originally issued as a continuous 33 minute work which divided into two parts, formed side one and two of the LP and is now presented as it should be in one piece. With Shepp are some of the most renowned musicians of the "new" music as it was called in the sixties including Roswell Rudd on trombone and Beaver Harris on drums. Donald Garrett and Lewis Worrell are the bassists. These are master musicians who have chosen to play this music. One track is recitation by Shepp called THE WEDDING backed only by the arco bass of Worrell. The listener may be surprised by the consummate articulation and rich voice of Shepp the actor. I was. This music is also of rich historical interest and anyone even vaguely interested in the evolution of American society into a more just and civilized one, will find this music enriching with being ponderous. It is not just entertaining music. I'm glad I purchased this album.

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