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No such thing as jazz >> Renaissance sax-man Archie Shepp paints it black by ADAM "ANGEL FOOD" GOLLNER
Mirror: You once said that the music you made in the '60s has been "dismissed as a wrong turn, a suicidal effort." Why do you think that happened? Archie Shepp: My biggest disappointment about its lack of popularity is that it didn't reach my own people. It didn't reach black people. It is primarily listened to by a white, middle-class audience. M: The emphasis in the music was really on the African-American experience. Why did it not get to its intended target? AS: There might have been a number of reasons. It wasn't ever marketed properly. On the other hand, there's an aesthetic in the Negro community which is probably much more deeply rooted in blues idioms, which would have prevented them from making that kind of connection with that music. M: What about "For Mods Only," the song you write for Chico Hamilton? That's a very blues-based song. AS: Yeah. That song appealed to the soul audiences. To African-American audiences. It's been good to me, that song
Trane ticket M: You played with John Coltrane on several occasions. Would it be at all possible for you to describe what it was like to be there? AS: I could. It was rather like being in church. I mean, like being in a black, sanctified church. I don't mean a Lutheran or a Catholic church, I'm talking about an African-American, Methodist Baptist experience. Real deep, man. Trane reached a broad spectrum of his people, and a broad spectrum of white folks. That's why he was able to make a recording like A Love Supreme, the only gold record that's ever come from the so-called jazz idiom. M: The only gold one? What about white jazz, like... AS: That's why I don't use the term "jazz." See what I mean? When I want a croissant, I go to France. I don't go to Finland. When I want to hear what you call jazz, I go to Mississippi or to a black neighbourhood in Chicago, or New York, New Orleans, Philadelphia. That's where I hear that music. Let me explain. When you say "jazz," I think of slavery. When I think of African-American music, I think of slavery, an experience that evolved culturally, socially, economically. So we have a music today that white people participate in, like rock 'n' roll and all kinds of spinoffs. Elvis Presley and all these people. I don't consider them by any means a part of my tradition, except that they evolved out of it. They are by no means innovators to me. Benny Goodman is not an innovator in the African-American tradition, he's an imitator. Whites have benefited enormously from my people's music, but they have contributed very, very, very little. M: Perhaps, after what you've just said, the answer to this may be kind of evident, but were you like Thelonious Monk in that you were "trying to keep the white boys from learning what you were playing?" AS: Monk sums it up in a very vernacular sense. I think there are other ways to put that. Duke said the same thing when he assigned numbers to his music rather than names, because the white boys were coming in and writing down his music on their shirt sleeves. That was done quite prevalently, in the '20s in Chicago. Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" is really William Grant Stills' "American Symphony." You ever heard of William Grant Stills? M: Nah. AS: I figured you hadn't. He's called the Dean of Black Music. That's our vernacular, that's how we look at him. White folks don't look at him like a dean. They don't even know who he is. Check him out, man, he's a bad cat. Gershwin studied composition from him, way back there in the late '20s and '30s. He also studied piano with Fats Waller and the ragtime kings. He'd bring Fats to his home, give him a jug of whiskey and say, "Play for me, Fats." M: And then steal his ideas? AS: Sure, man, Fats was uptown, man. He was in a neighbourhood where he'd never be. Gershwin didn't live in Harlem. M: "Gershwin didn't live in Harlem." That should be the title of something. AS: Yeah, that should be, baby. It was researched theft, plagiarism.
Before the avant-garde M: I'd like to talk about avant-garde in jazz... AS: Now I don't use the term "jazz," so let's not get into trouble with this question. M: Okay, how about avant-garde in African-American music, would that be a suitable way of putting it? AS: I can deal with that. Can you deal with that? M: Yes. Was there an avant-garde before the innovations of the early '60s? AS: Certainly. It probably begins with the African American, when he tap-danced, when he dared to break the white man's rule. When he broke the theory of parallel fifths and octaves, as in Ellington. Certainly. Look at all the music from Kansas City to New Orleans, and the whole movement in the late '40s. Hip swing and so on... (laughs). It's all revolutionary, man, it's all brand new. White folks weren't doing it nowhere in the world. M: Then we can discard the notion of an avant-garde movement. AS: Either that, or we can ennoble it, and we can broaden its concept to include Louis Armstrong and people who actually put the A in avant-garde. M: Wow. So what does the term free jazz mean to you? AS: See, I don't use the term "jazz." When people say free jazz, I say it ain't free, man, it's very expensive. M: I see. Mr. Shepp, you are a composer, a sax player, a poet, a playwright and an educator. How would you most like to remembered? AS: As a renaissance man. I did it all, man. I do it all.
In duet with Horace Parlan at the Spectrum, Saturday, July 3, 6pm, $29.50 |
In this Puff Daddy world of peppercorn marginalia--money, power, and fame--it's refreshing to come across someone who, to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, has a love of truth and a desire to communicate it at all cost. A hidden treasure, Archie Shepp is one of those people. Alongside luminaries like Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler, Shepp was at the forefront of what is termed the avant-garde, or free jazz, movement of the '60s. But if Shepp's around, you best not call it jazz, Chester.