ARCHIE SHEPP — Live At The Panafrican Festival (review)

ARCHIE SHEPP — Live At The Panafrican Festival album cover Live album · 1971 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
snobb
Archie Shepp's debut on French BYG label - the beginning of series of interesting recordings - is quite unusual work. Recorded live with all-stars team (it's enough to mention Grachan Moncur III on trombone and bassist Alan Silva among others)it contains just two long African ritual rhythms-based compositions. Fortunately this music has not much in common with fashionable ethno-fusion invented few decades later to increase sales of fake African ritual masks to naive tourists. Native Touareg and Algerian musicians participated in recordings (both compositions are recorded during First Pan-African Cultural Festival in North Africa)gave true desert vibes to music recorded.

I believe on the wave of almost cult interest to African music/culture in time of release this album sounded as fashionable and possibly almost revolutionary. But from time distance of more than four decades listener wouldn't be pleased by bootleg level sound/mix quality,unfocused compositions concentrated on repetitive African rhythms with noisy brass sound over tribe pulsation and hardly understandable (because of noisy drumming on the front of the sound mix) poetry. Being a valuable historical evidence of its time this album is far not so attractive in musical sense. Later re-release on CD (together with another album,coming from 1969 - Blasé)didn't demonstrate improve in sound mix/quality.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

Sanyas Hard Bop
STEVE TURRE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Pianohooligan : Critique of Swing in Two Parts, Pts. 1 & 2 Third Stream
PIOTR ORZECHOWSKI (PIANOHOOLIGAN)
Buy this album from MMA partners
Jason Stein, Marilyn Crispell, Damon Smith, Adam Shead : Spi​-​raling Horn Avant-Garde Jazz
JASON STEIN
Buy this album from MMA partners
Utopia Jazz Related Improv/Composition
OLIVER LUTZ
Buy this album from MMA partners
Charlie Pyne Quartet : Nature Is A Mother Vocal Jazz
CHARLIE PYNE
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

Critique of Swing in Two Parts, Pt. 1
PIOTR ORZECHOWSKI (PIANOHOOLIGAN)
js· 9 hours ago
FULL ALBUM - Oliver Lutz - Utopia w/ Leif Berger, Constantin Krahmer
OLIVER LUTZ
js· 1 day ago
Lift
DAVE WILSON (US/NZ)
js· 3 days ago
Nature is a Mother
CHARLIE PYNE
js· 3 days ago
Marta Warelis solo @ FourOneOne 5-11-23
MARTA WARELIS
js· 3 days ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed