Archie Shepp

身兼音乐家、诗人、作家、剧作家多重身份的高音萨克斯风手Archie Shepp，是60年代最有煽动力的自由乐派乐手。带着深厚的种族情感和觉醒意识，这位双子座、曾以音乐艺术为武器、宣扬族人权益的音乐家，似乎永远不会缺少创造力，只要拿起萨克斯风，他那股夺目耀眼的风采便如泉涌现，这就是为什么他一出道便惊艳爵士乐界，也能轻易感染他人意识的原因。2004年，Shepp特别替Venus录制了最新专辑。音乐除了展现如原曲般对人生的强烈感慨外，还带点浓浓的爱与愁。在1966、1967这两年中，台上的Shepp常常会癫痫般完全失去了控制，将手中的高音萨克斯吹得似一辆尖啸的救火车，与他配合的乐手都不知该怎样和他合奏，只好呆在一边发愣。Archie Shepp说：“我玩音乐是发自于一种不可抗拒的需要...”，这句话很好的诠释了他自己的风格。

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, explicit 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 R&B 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. Shepps 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 Shepps 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 Ørsted Pedersen, and Jasper vant 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-80s on (his highly original sound was his most important contribution to jazz), and Shepp became a less significant figure in the 1990s than one might have hoped.