Archie Shepp - 1965 - Fire Music

Archie Shepp

1965

Fire Music

01. Hambone 12:05

02. Los Olvidados 8:36

03. Malcolm, Malcolm, Semper Malcolm 4:40

04. Prelude To A Kiss 4:41

05. The Girl From Ipanema 8:18

Bass – David Izenzon (3)

Drums – J.C. Moses (3)

Alto Saxophone – Marion Brown

Bass – Reggie Johnson

Drums – Joe Chambers

Tenor Saxophone – Archie Shepp

Trombone – Joseph Orange

Trumpet – Ted Curson

Recorded on February 16 & March 9, 1965.

A Product of ABC-Paramount Records, Inc.

Archie Shepp plays a Selmer Saxophone.

A highly-influential figure in American music and black consciousness, Archie Shepp has been a bold, soulful innovator in his time and Fire Music, just reissued on vinyl, exemplifies that fiery, gutsy spirit. For his peculiarly astringent but soulful brew, Shepp drew on African music, New Orleans jazz and rhythm and blues and the musician was vocal in the struggle against racism and the colour bar in the 1960s. Civil rights were always to the fore as an element in his cutting edge music, as evidenced by Fire Music which first appeared in 1965.

Malcom, Malcom - Semper Malcolm features the saxophonist leader reciting a short poem in honour of the slain Malcolm X before taking up his sax for the music, accompanied by double bass player David Isenzon and the drumming of J.C. Moses.

The album is not an easy listen for the fan who likes tunefulness and smooth rhythms, it must be said. Shepp is more in a Charlie Mingus groove, with little of the accessibility of, say, Miles Davis. In fact, just to cheekily send up any suggestion of prettiness or shimmer, he takes all the sensual sway out of of Girl from Ipanema in his bonkers version which features here. It runs to eight minutes and 33 seconds which may prove a little long for you.

The album, however, opens with Hambone, all free-ranging bittersweet horn harmony riffing across 12 minutes and 28 seconds, led by Shepp's tenor, with Marion Brown on alto sax, Reggie Johnson on bass and Joe Chambers on drums. The same appealing line-up delivers track two, Los Olvidados, a tribute to the 1950 film directed by Luis Buñuel, dealing with the lives of poverty-stricken children in contemporary Mexico.

Fire Music must be one of Shepp’s most interesting albums, blistering and intense, a half-way house between Free and the Avant Garde. The musical territory ranges from the haunting recitation and requiem for Malcolm X (quick history lesson here, it is not what you might assume), to the kitsch reworking of the Girl From Ipanema, with Shepp as Webster/Hawkins reincarnated as Freddie Kreuger’s Nightmare on Elm Street, ripping into the tune at will while caressing it.

Shepp found more ways to force sound from the tenor than probably any other player, punctuating expressive breathiness with shouts, shrieks and dissonaces, sometimes choosing its own direction own irrespective of “the tune”. The septet surrounds him in rich and varied textures, full of surprises, with moments of Mingus but burning bright, angry and on fire, as befits its title, Fire Music.

Commentators often draw connections with this mid-’60s jazz and social/ political issues of the day. Personally I try to treat music as music, not necessarily “better” because of some background social injustice. Possibly controversial, but moral high ground doesn’t confer some magic fairy dust on music. Fire Music stands on its own merits.