snobb
Archie Shepp debut (as co-leader with other future great advanced jazz musician, trumpeter Bill Dixon)is rare and interesting work,showing how much their early music was influenced by ideas of Ornette Coleman.
Shepp and Dixon co-led the band of varied line-up and size (from quartet to sextet) between late 1961 and summer of 1963, this album (later reissued in France by BYG label as "Peace") is the only recorded evidence of their co-operation. The band played in bars and small places around Greenwich Village and made one tour to Scandinavia, including participation in jazz festival in Helsinki, Finland.
Studio album contains two Dixon originals and Leonard Bernstein composition from West Side Story, "Somewhere", played by quartet with bassist Don Moore and drummer Paul Cohen plus Coleman composition "Peace", played as quartet with drummer Howard McRae and future regular Mal Waldron bassist Reggie Workman. Musically the album represents transitional mix of advanced soloing reedists and mainstream rhythm section.Still not as free as original Coleman music, album's compositions are closer to his more formal works than to explosive and emotional Shepp's upcoming solo albums.
Reissued for a first time on CD in 2009, album was completed with other rarities - full "Bill Dixon 7-Tette / Archie Shepp & The New York Contemporary Five" album from 1964 (in stereo sound differently from original Shepp-Dixon Quartet mono recordings).Valuable evidence of early music from Archie Shepp and Bill Dixon, this album contains music which is attractive enough to be listened by any fan of free jazz from 60s, not only Shepp/Dixon fans and completists.