Search - Archie Shepp :: St. Louis Blues

Tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp worked with the legendary John Coltrane in the 1960s and is a direct descendant of his legacy. A soul survivor of the avant-garde movement, Shepp has extended the boundaries of jazz by constantly going back to its folkloric and ancestral sources. On this CD, Shepp is joined by two avant-garde fellow travelers: bassist Richard Davis and drummer Sunny Murray , along with percussionist Leopoldo Flemming. On the title track, written by the great W.C. Handy, Shepp and Davis deliver a down-home tenor sax-bass duet, with Shepp's articulate bone-deep tenor tones matched by his earthy vocals. Shepp and Davis form another dynamic duo on Kenny Dorham's Brazilian-blended jazz standard "Blue Bossa" and Billie Holiday's ballad "God Bless the Child." The quartet delivers some dynamic Afro-diasporic dances on "Et Moi," the thumb piano pulsated "Limbuke," and the ancestrally anthemed "Omega." Although this CD is bathed in the influences of Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Archie Shepp has taken his language and made it his own. --Eugene Holley Jr.