Saturday, January 5, 2008

Way out there


I first came across Archie Shepp through Nick Cave. Way back in the eighties I was listening to a Dutch radio show in which Saint Nick was asked to present his favourite music. I vaguely recall him spinning some old blues stuff, some Elvis, Dylan and Cash; the usual suspects so to speak.

But then he played a song called Blasé by jazzman Archie Shepp and that bowled me right over. What a sound! Bluesy, way out there and not like anything I´d heard before. Worth the price of admission alone for that threatening piano intro. Shepp´s tenor playing is sparse but very effective and the inclusion of 2 blues harmonicas towards the end works surprisingly well.

There´s some seriously heavy shit going on in the lyrics: "Blasé ain´t you big daddy? You who shot your sperm into me, but never set me free". Right on. Jeanne Lee is the singer and yes that´s the mighty Philly Joe Jones on drums. The other 4 songs on the Blasé album (´69) aren´t half bad either by the way. "This ain´t a hate thing, it´s a love thing". Thanks for the tip Nick.

Archie Shepp - Blasé MP3

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thank you for finding out, was looking for it for quit a long time. I've heard the same show and that song stayed in my head.