Archie Shepp

Archie Shepp was born in 1937 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was 7 years old when his family moved to Philadelphia, in the black neighborhood of "Brick Yard". He started playing the banjo with his father, then he studied piano and saxophone at the same time as he did his secondary studies at Germantown College. He entered university, got into theatre, frequented novelists and poets like Leroy Jones, and wrote his first play "The Communist", an allegory on the situation of black Americans. At the end of the 50s, Archie Shepp met the most radical musicians of the time: Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons, Jimmy Garrisson, Ted Curson, Beaver Harris... During this period, his political conscience found expression in plays and theatrical productions that only allowed him to survive. It was at the beginning of the 60s that he met Cécil Taylor and made two recordings with him that would be decisive. In 1962, he signed his first album as co-leader with Bill Dixon. The following year, he founded the New York Contemporary Five with John Tchicaï, recorded four albums for the Fontana, Storyville and Savoy labels and discovered Europe with the same group. From August 1964, he worked with Impulse: 17 albums were recorded including Four for Trane, Fire Music, Mama too Tight, which are among the classics of Free music. His collaboration with John Coltrane took shape in Ascension in 1965 and marked a turning point in avant-garde music. His participation in the creation of the Composers Guild with P…