Archie Shepp

USA

Born: 24 May 1937

Years Active: 60, 70, 80, 90, 2000

Genres: Jazz, Vocal

Styles: Bop, Hard Bop, Free Jazz, Mainstream Jazz, New Orleans/Classic Jazz, Progressive Jazz, Big Band/Swing, Standards, Traditional Pop, Vocal/Standards, Avant-Garde Jazz

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Archie Shepp has been at various times a feared firebrand and radical, soulful throwback and contemplative veteran. He was viewed in the '60s as perhaps the most articulate and disturbing member of the free generation, a published playwright willing to speak on the record in unsparing, explicit fashion about social injustice and the anger and rage he felt. His tenor sax solos were searing, harsh, and unrelenting, played with a vivid intensity. But in the '70s, Shepp employed a fatback/swing-based R&B approach, and in the '80s he mixed straight ...

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