Archie Shepp Early Albums Collection

Excellent collection of the very underrated Shepp. Some music not otherwise available. Too much great music to go into detail; suffice it to say, this is some of the best free jazz from the sixties around.

Good collection.

Absolute must for any follower of the edge of the art!

This nicely-priced set from Enlightenment Records is a hugely important reissue, bringing the complete New York Contemporary Five (herewith NYC5) recordings back into print after years of unavailability. The NYC5 recordings (which, confusingly, were originally released as three full vinyl albums and one side of another) are crucial documents of the New Thing in sixties jazz and their reappearance is desperately overdue. More of those later.In addition to the NYC5 tracks, this set also includes almost all of Archie Shepp's early recordings, excluding only sideman sets with Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane. So we get a session with Shepp co-leading with Bill Dixon, the "Rufus" album (recorded in 1963 but not released until 1966) and the first three albums released under Shepps name - "Four For Trane", "Fire Music" and "On This Night", all originally released on Impulse in 1964-65. The Impulse albums aren't quite complete in this set. "Fire Music" and "On This Night" are missing the alternate takes found on previous CD re-releases, while "Four For Trane" drops that album's version of "Rufus" entirely. This is probably the most contentious aspect of this set, as "Four For Trane" is widely regarded as Shepp's finest album, and one of the key New Thing texts. The set as a whole includes two other versions of "Rufus", so - given the attempt to get eight-and-a-half albums onto 4 long CDs - you can see why the compilers chose to drop the more widely-available version, but it does mean that if you really want "Four For Trane" in its entirety (and if you're reading this, you probably do, unless you already have it) you'll need to look elsewhere. It's also worth noting that the "Four For Trane" version was actually called "Rufus (Swung, His Face At Last To The Wind, Then His Neck Snapped)", an important indicator that Shepp was the most vocally political of the New Thing pioneers.And so to the music. The Shepp-Dixon set, the "Rufus" album and the NYC5 recordings are clearly made in the wake of Ornette Coleman's Atlantic albums, and indeed a number of Coleman compositions can be found here, though as Don Cherry is the NYC5's trumpeter an Ornette flavour is hardly surprising. But while Ornette's early work is full of wide-open spaces and peace, these recordings have a much tougher, unsettling, urban feel to them. Shepp's tenor is ferocious throughout. The Impulse recordings are a bit more accessible, as the tracks are more arranged (especially on "Four For Trane", with "Syeeda's Song Flute", "Mr Syms", "Cousin Mary" and "Naima" brilliantly arranged by trombonist Roswell Rudd), and Shepp tempers his savagery with occasional bouts of outrageously sardonic balladry, but "accessible" is a relative term and everything here falls into the camp of what in this reviewer's household is known as "wife-bothering music". As the liner notes point out, this set as a whole forms the basic template for what could be called - with the irony acknowledged - the mainstream of Free Jazz. Everything here is inventive, full of fire and it's far more diverse and approachable than parp-squeak Free Jazz stereotypes would have you believe. That said, Free Jazz it is, with a vengeance, so don't expect Oscar Peterson.Archie Shepp, 81 at time of writing, has failed to achieve the legendary status of many of his contemporaries by virtue of a stubborn refusal to die and a very long career characterised by far too many mediocre recordings. This set as a whole, as well as putting some vitally important music back into circulation after far too long a gap, is a significant reminder of just how good a musician he was in his pomp. CD sales might be in decline in general, but they're holding strong for jazz - and archival sets like this, which help the listener to focus on the development of the artist in question - are probably a key reason for that. This is an absolutely crucial purchase for anyone with an interest in this era of jazz. Those who are curious but a little wary of tumultuous free-form racket would be better advised to seek out a stand-alone copy of "Four For Trane", but anyone who's already on board will have a splendid time.

ce n'est pas la musique le problème: j'ai retourné un premier coffret et le deuxième...n'était pas mieux et j'ai dû le retourner aussi.Quelques cds, pas tous, ne peuvent pas tourner normalement.Problème de production.

Gute Qualität und guter Service und pünktliche Lieferung.

音飛びが酷いが盤自体に傷は見られず。デッキを変えて再生したが状況は変わらず。プレス時の不良と思われる。