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Archie Shepp
photographed at
the Torino Jazz
Festival in Turin,
Italy, April 26, 2018

16 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2020

 I could have
been a rock’n’roll
star
ANAUDIENCEWITHARCHIESHEPP
A
RCHIE Shepp’s musical
output is defined by a single-
minded pursuit of the ‘new
thing’, so it’s perhaps not
so surprising to discover
that, at the age of 82, he’s just released a
hip-hop record. Ocean Bridges pairs his
restless sax lines with the taut grooves
of a band centred around DJ/drummer
Damu The Fudgemunk and the conscious
rapping of Shepp’s nephew Jason Moore,
aka Raw Poetic. For Shepp it’s an entirely
natural move. “I consider
myself one of the creators
of that style,” he says,
not unreasonably. “I
infused a number of my
works with poetry and
I’m glad to see that it’s
evolved. [After me] there
were groups like The
Last Poets, who were
very similar to what’s
going on now, poetic
expression combined
with jazz music. I did a
recording with Chuck D
of Public Enemy a little while
back and I was quite pleased
to know how those guys had
listened to jazz and a lot of music
of that era, myself included.”
Shepp is speaking on
the phone from his home
near the University Of
Massachusetts, where he taught
ethnomusicology for more than
30 years. He was heartened to see
many students joining the recent
Black Lives Matter protests, although
“there is a very annoying sense of
déjà vu. In my formative years I was
very politically engaged, and here we
go again with the same discourse.
Well, not exactly the same, but things
haven’t changed that profoundly.”
It’s just one reason why Shepp’s
finest, politically charged works such
as 1972’s Attica Blues and The Cry Of
Interview by SAM RICHARDS
My People remain essential listening today
as they strive to envision a better world.
sittruethatyourfirstinstrumentwas
hebanjo?JamesCarradine,Stirling
Yes. My father played the banjo, and as
a young child I really harassed him to
each me how to play it. From my father I
earned a lot of songs that were standards
at the time. He was a big fan of the
ills Brothers and he played a
t of their things – “Paper Doll”,
My Blue Heaven” – and things
hat I still play today, like “Do You
now What It Means To Miss New
rleans”. When my parents moved
rom Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
o Philadelphia, I had access
piano lessons, clarinet and
axophone lessons, and a whole
new world opened up to me.
Options were open to blacks in
Bridging the
generations:
Shepp with
his latest
collaborators
the North that were not quite so readily
available in the South.
Did you encounter many adverse
reactions when trying to introduce
your ‘new thing’ at Newport and
elsewhere in the early ’60s?
Patrick Stamp, via email
Yes and no. Of course, the so-called ‘new
thing’ wasn’t a popular music. Originally
I had never dreamt of being associated
with free jazz. In Philadelphia I had the
good fortune to be very close to guys like
Lee Morgan and Bobby Timmons, so
back then I was very traditional. It was
only when I moved to New York that I was
recommended to the very charismatic
and intelligent Cecil Taylor. He was a
poet, he’d studied classical music, he’d
experienced a lot of things that people
like myself, who’d come from the black
working class, had not. Then I formed
my own group, and by the good grace
of John Coltrane I hooked up with an
important recording company, Impulse!
There was a lot of pushback against
free jazz but I was recording for a big
company, so at the same time there was
a lot of support.
Wereyoudisappointedtobecutfrom
thefinalversionofALoveSupreme?
VaughanCarter,Pittsburgh,USA
Not at all, because they did a couple of
reissues on which they included my
contribution, such as it was, and I was very
JASON MOORE; ALESSANDRO BOSIO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
gratified. I was really overwhelmed and
a bit intimidated by my circumstances,
because I had – and still have – profound
respect for John Coltrane. He was
responsible, really, for putting me on
the map. We didn’t spend a lot of time
together, but the time we did spend
together was very important for me.
Doyourecallthe1967Hammersmith
Odeonconcertwhereyouplayed
onthesamenightasTheMilesDavis
Quintet?JackK,viaTwitter
SEPTEMBER 2020 • UNCUT •17

Miles preceded us because he had in his
contract that he always went on first. He
concluded with “Round Midnight” and
got a standing ovation. And then, after
him, came us. I’m wearing a dashiki and
Roswell [Rudd, trombonist] is wearing a
baseball cap – we really looked like some
guys off the block. For me, it was quite a
startling experience because we had been
used to rehearsing in my little studio in
New York where we were right on top of
each other. The stage at Hammersmith
looked like a baseball field to me. We
played only one composition, “A Portrait
Of Robert Thompson”. The beginning’s
very free and people were totally startled,
shocked. A whole row of the more
well-heeled, affluent people in the seats
downstairs got up and started to leave.
When we finally concluded this hour of
music, uninterrupted, all the people in
the downstairs started booing and all
the young people in the balcony started
cheering, so there was a standoff for about
DAVID REDFERN/GETTY IMAGES; PHILIPPE GRAS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
10 or 15 minutes and finally the producer
came to me and said, ‘You’ll have to play
an encore because it looks like we’re going
to have a riot!’ The divide between the
generations was really quite clear.
Whathappenedbetweenyouand
MilesDavisatTheVanguard?
BenjaminKern,viaemail
We had a disagreement when I asked if I
could sit in with him. We had a dispute that
erupted… But I always had great respect
for Miles because I figure I probably
wouldn’t have gotten into this music if it
hadn’t been for him. He was a hero to me
from the start. Not a very easy man to get
18 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2020
Shepp, soon to
become a
professor of
music, on stage
circa 1970
On tour in
Europe, 1967,
and (below)
Miles Davis at
Hammersmith
Odeon, 1967
along with, but I learned a lot from
him. In fact on that [1967 European]
tour, after we left England, we went,
I think, to Rotterdam. When we got
there, a couple of limos rolled up for
Miles and the principals. Then a bunch
of yellow school buses rolled up and
that was for the rest of us. It was
about noontime and they hadn’t
confirmed any rooms for us. I’d
really been partying hard in
London, so I fell asleep on one
of those buses. When I woke up,
my face was stuck to the leather
of the seat. After yanking myself
up I was really quite angry, so I
said, ‘Take me where you took
Miles, motherfucker!’ Much
to my surprise, they put me
in a taxi and took me to the
Rotterdam Hilton. I was
still hungover and
furious and yelling and
screaming in the lobby
when someone tapped
me on the shoulder. I
looked round and he
said, [adopts perfect
Miles drawl] “Next time,
put it in your contract!”
How hard was it to
createanuplifting
pieceofworklike
AtticaBluesin
responsetosucha
horrificevent?Maria
Cáceres,viaemail
It really wasn’t hard at all.
The idea was suggested to
me by my drummer of the
time, Beaver Harris. Immediately
it clicked with me… I’ve always
been politically very conscious. In
fact, when I started college, I went
there with the idea of becoming
a lawyer because I wanted to
engage with the circumstances
that oppress my people. Actually
I ended up majoring in theatre,
and my thesis was a play. Eventually
I had a play done off-Broadway in the
’60s, and the plays included music. I
was able to create a holistic project. So
yeah, [I approached Attica Blues] like
a piece of theatre.
How did you end up playing
on Material’s cover of Soft
Machine’s “Memories”, sung by
a young Whitney Houston?
Barney Meacham, Cumbria
I was solicited by [Celluloid Records
co-founder Jean] Karakos, who had
previously been with BYG Records.
They’d ripped me off, but when he
called me I needed the money. I’d
never heard Whitney Houston but I
met her as I was leaving the studio.
She reminded me of my youngest
daughter, she was so pure – just a
lovely woman. Of course she was
perfectly innocent at that time, she
hadn’t gotten into all the things
that would eventually lead to her
demise. And when I heard the
recording I was really amazed at
how she turned the song into a
heavy gospel number. Whitney
did something with that song that
nobody else could have done.
It’s so unfortunate how things
turned out for her. Also, [Soft
Machine are] due credit for having
conceived a song that had so many
mplications. I met Robert Wyatt
years later – very nice man.
here’s a great photo of you
anging out with Frank Zappa
n the cover of Jazz & Pop
magazine in 1967. Do you recall
what you were talking about?
ndy Stratton, Kilburn
o, but I remember the occasion.
was probably better known than
he was at the time! I got a call from
Bob Thiele [Impulse! boss and Jazz &
Pop publisher] who wanted me to be
there, I think to put a little animus in
their image, and that’s how I met Frank.
Years later he came up to the University
of Massachusetts where I was teaching,
so I went by the concert and Frank was
there with his entourage – his huge
bodyguards, cute little girls with shirts
on that said ‘Zappa’. By that time he’d
become quite an important figure.
Could I have cut it as a rock’n’roller?
Well, I started out as a bluesman. My
first professional gig in Philadelphia,
when I was 16, was a group called the
Jolly Rompers, and that was strictly
blues – what we call fatback. I
could sing blues, I had a good
feeling for it. So I could have been
rock’n’roll star. Sometimes I
ish I had done that – I might
ave made more money!
Archie Shepp, Raw Poetic
nd Damu The Fudgemunk’s
Ocean Bridges is out now on
edefinition Records