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2018 Archie Shepp
001-2018-019
46:38 Master Camera files on Hard Drive, Mp4 on Server and Cloud
2018-05-03
Interviewer - Ashley Kahn
ABSTRACT: 03:21 Shepp explains that he does not identify as a jazz musician, getting into the word’s French origins and explaining how he prefers the term ‘African-American music.’ 05:58 Shepp describes how, as a black person, he has always known, felt and considered culture and politics to be inextricably linked. 07:50 Shepp tells how enriching a musical environment he found Philadelphia to be, clarifying that a lot of the musicians there, including himself and Coltrane, were from the south. He shares how it was playing the blues, which he’d learned from his father, that impressed him to Lee Morgan, who began hiring him on gigs. 12:55 Shepp speaks to what an incredible and precocious musician Morgan was, getting hired by Dizzy Gillespie at the age of eighteen, and cites him as a grand influence. 15:25 Shepp tells how he thinks artists should challenge their experience and be involved in areas where things need to be changed. 18:01 Shepp explains that only when he got to college did he realize that the spoken word could be included on recordings. In 1960, he did a slam to his grandmother, and began incorporating poetry into his music and albums. 21:12 Recording, “Come Sunday” 27:12 Shepp speaks to a visit home to his mother, who asked if he was “still playing little tunes that don’t have any melody,” which spurred him to change his course. 30:35 Shepp tells how when he first became a college teacher in 1969, there was a dearth of material on black music, excluding that of primarily French scholars on the likes of Louis Armstrong. This necessitated him creating a lot of his own, writing essays and the like. He explains that there is now a wealth of written and audiovisual material to be used, though he retired in 2002. 35:45 Shepp denies that the current musical scene is like a resurgence of the ‘60’s, seeing young people as more passive and less activist, less invested in changing their circumstances, which he sees inextricably linked to the US’ lack of focus on education. 42:37 Shepp explains that he named his orchestra Attica Blues, as he titled an album, because he doesn’t consider things to have “changed so profoundly,” and considers it imperative that everyone get involved in improving not only their own but other’s circumstances. 44:46 Recording, “Attica Blues”
video recording
Public Access is available in the Archive due to copyright restrictions. Copyrights are retained by the participants. The video is available for viewing at the archive.
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation Archive