Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp (May 24, 1937 in Ft Lauderdale, FL) was brought up in Philadelphia where he learned to play piano, clarinet, and alto sax (he later he switched to tenor). Shepp met John Coltrane in Philadelphia. Archie studied drama at Goddard College in 1955-59, and after graduating he settled in New York, where he worked with Cecil Taylor and Don Cherry. From 1965, he had occasional associations with Coltrane, working with him in various clubs. On 10/28/1984, Archie Shepp "guested" with The Mothers and provided tenor sax for You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 4. Currently residing in Massachusetts, he teaches Music History as a Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Frank Zappa and Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp, 'Philly Joe' Jones, Earl Freeman, Louis Maholo, John Dyani and Grachan Moncur lll
Photo: Jacques Bisceglia (BYG) for Downbeat
During the Actuel Festival in Amougies, Belgium (1969), Archie Shepp performed on Sunday evening, 26 October, and Monday the 27th. Shepp and Zappa contributed to a jam session on Monday.
The track Let's Move to Cleveland on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 4 (1991) features contributions by Archie Shepp.
Frank Zappa about Archie Shepp
"We have a new routine that we're going to unveil shortly that deals with American blues bands. Now let's get this straight. It is not necessarily logical that if you learn all your favorite guitar solos off a bunch of old records and play them yourself under the influence of a vast quantity of drugs that you have soul. Now I may be wrong about this, but I just kinda feel that it's really stupid to pretend like that. Ah, there's something basically aberrated about this sort of american blues band. You get a bunch of little white boys who want to play a type of Negro music with which they might identify but ahh, I don't feel they are competent to ahh, to -- they shouldn't play that shit, man. It's not their bag, really, and they're kidding themselves and they're doing a disservice to the music scene in general and to the colored people who they -- you know what it's like? The guy says, 'Oh MAN, I'm gonna play SO funky and we're gonna go down there-' and these colored guys are gonna come in there and say 'Hey, you guys do pretty good for white boys,' and they wait for that. I've seen 'em, man and it's disgusting. They wait for some old man, they wait for the janitor to come up and say, 'Yeah, I remember when I was back down on the levee and you guys err really sound, yessir!' and I don't know who's putting who on. But I bet the janitor will wait around for a group like that to come around so he can put 'em on and then go away some place and listen to Archie Shepp." - Frank Zappa, Don Paulsen interviews FZ, 22 December 1966.
"One of the reasons why the Mothers have never been associated with jazz is because most reviewers have never listened to jazz," retorted Frank. "They wouldn't guess unless it said on an album cover that we were influenced by jazz. If I had stated on an early album that I had been influenced by Eric Dolphy or Archie Shepp then for the last five years they would have been writing about jazz influences instead of Stravinsky influences." - Frank Zappa, interviewed by Bob Dawbarn, Zappa – The Great Satirist, 1971.
"That's where I got the idea for the (...) title for the Hot Rats album. There is a recording that I picked up in Europe that had—I think it was "The Shadow Of Your Smile," with Archie Shepp playing on it. And he played this solo—it just sounded to me immediately like there was this fucking army of preheated rats screaming out of his saxophone. That's what it sounded like." - Frank Zappa, The Origins Of Hot Rats, interviewed by Peter Occhiogrosso, 1987.
