ARCHIE SHEPP — Archie Shepp Attica Blues Orchestra Live: I Hear the Sound (review)

ARCHIE SHEPP — Archie Shepp Attica Blues Orchestra Live: I Hear the Sound album cover Live album · 2013 · Progressive Big Band Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
snobb
The live Attica Blues Orchestra album opens just as the "Attica Blues" album, released more than forty years ago, sounded during its first seconds - with a deep funky bass line. Four decades changed little here - song after song, this suite sounds as if its studio version recording was just finished and Shepp moved out to tour with his big band.

Archie Shepp's "Attica Blues" studio album, recorded in 1972, was one of his best big orchestra works ever, but in the time of its release was often attacked by his old fans because it contained less of the "angry man's new thing" Archie was so known for during late 60s and early 70s. Still, being politically sharp as any of Shepp's early releases (recorded just several months after authorities ended the Attica prison uprising by massacring 43), musically it contains blues, gospel and RnB with orchestral arrangements spiced up with Shepp's unorthodox saxophone soloing.

Four decades later, Shepp formed the "Attica Blues Orchestra" with some veterans (pianist and vocalist Amina Claudina Myers, Art Ensemble of Chicgo percussionist Famoudou Don Moye, etc) and a big team of young French brass and strings musicians. The live "Attica Blues" version was recorded in 2012 and 2013 during concerts in France and sounds surprisingly close to its original version after all these decades. Shepp's vocals are strong and new singer Cécile McLorin-Salvant is excellent, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire is another one of this album's heroes.

Shepp doesn't open new horizons with this album, but he adds a second life to great and under-valued material, which sounds more mature and surprisingly fresh even today. Not pure jazz, and really different from the "Magic Of Ju-Ju", this album perfectly illustrates a different side of Shepp's musical personality, and it's a great one.
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