Let My People Go (Archieball)
Archie Shepp and Jason Moran
Released February 2021
JazzTimes Top 10 Jazz Albums of 2021
Arts Fuse 2021 Jazz Critics Poll Top 20 New Album
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lRqJLxqXfNOlAC3_wUji2C5OicQj-T0Z0
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/5TW5luIbblmrglEv4NpP8K?si=07yK99XDSJi6EXa2sKMmUQ
About:
“Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thoughts, fears and emotions—time—all related…all made from one…all made in one.”
John Coltrane, 1964
There comes a time when
musical expression flows directly from the soul—unimpeded, unfiltered.
Unmasked. A point when the modes of expression—the way a person plays and
sings, the way he walks and talks and even wears his hat—are all on the same
wavelength, all drawing from the same inner spirit. Their music reveals not
just who the individual musician might be, but reflects who we all are.
Message, music, and identity weave together into one.
Archie Shepp, more than sixty years into a career of supreme dedication, has
devoted a lifetime to this idea of spiritual singularity. His vast discography
is peppered with moments of deep connection: small ensembles and big bands.
Significant studio projects and equally historic live performances, as sideman,
leader, and very often, collaborator.
A special thread connects the saxophone/piano duets and makes them standout,
Shepp’s meetings with such greats as Horace Parlan, Joachim Kühn, Mal Waldron,
Jasper Van’t Hof, and Abdullah Ibrahim (back when he went as Dollar Brand.)
Four hands, two instruments, one common statement. Shepp has found a way
to consistently excel in this space, as a speaker and as a listener. Much of it
has to do with the intensity of the interaction between the two voices, how
that space allows the dialogue to stand out. Shepp, in all these instances, has
elevated it further: developing these conversations with just the right amount
of form and freedom.
Neither Shepp nor Jason Moran are old, and neither are they young—except in
spirit and delight. Moran is the more recent arrival, and he’s no new kid on
the block. They carry age and experience in their playing as much as a youthful
fascination with the songs and forms that define this tradition we call jazz.
Let My People Go is the timely title of this collection, but when has that
message not been relevant? Now, sadly, as ever.
This is their first recording together, a gathering of duet performances from
2017 and 2018, chronicling a relationship that can sound like the intimate
huddling of two old friends: whispered asides, excited exclamations, utterances
coinciding with practiced harmony, followed by bursts of laughter. “Ain’t
misbehavin’!” cries out one. “Waahhhh!!”, says the other. (That’s really Shepp
speaking both parts—but you get the idea.)
Shepp and Moran first met backstage at Belgium’s annual JazzMiddelheim Festival
in 2015; I’m proud to say I was there, having interviewed them separately,
watching them talk for the first time, feeling the mutual respect that was
there from the outset. In five quick years, their friendship has grown, and
they have cultivated the chances to perform together: co-headlining or as
guests on each other’s gigs, in Europe and the U.S., sometimes with a rhythm
section and singers, and as often, just the two of them. The performances
herein stem from two encounters: “Motherless Child”, “He Cares”, “Slow Drag”,
and “Isfahan” from a gig at Paris’s annual Jazz à la Villette festival in 2017,
and the remaining tracks from the 2018 edition of the Enjoy Jazz Festival in
Mannheim, Germany.
Let My People Go offers ample evidence of Shepp and Moran’s consanguinity. Both
were born in the deep South, raised up in the sound of the blues and black
gospel: Shepp in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Moran in Houston, Texas. Both
fell in love with jazz and other forms of cultural expression, and followed
their muses north. Shepp pursued a degree in drama at Goddard College in
Vermont, while playing saxophone and writing poetry; Moran, years later,
focused on classical and jazz piano at Manhattan School of Music. Both
developed an ever-expanding appreciation of pioneers like Duke Ellington, Fats
Waller, and Thelonious Monk, with an ear for contemporary styles: Shepp with
1960s Free Jazz, and Moran with Hip Hop of the late ‘80s through today.
Tellingly, neither has limited their appreciation or their own modes of
expression to just one style or age. Even as they maintain their own individual
approaches, their mutual ardor for the African American cultural tradition
embraces all leaves, branches, and—especially—its roots.
Love and pride and an abiding sense of message-giving that defies years and
categories. That’s the essence of these performances. There’s an old
African-American proverb that says, “The spirit will not descend without a
song.” Let My People Go is a supreme example of this idea. In this music, one
can hear how, when two deeply connected souls meet, the message in the music is
clarified and amplified, how its power is increased exponentially. Listen to
what they say to each other, and what their music has to say to us.
Ashley Kahn (October 2020)
Track Listing:
1. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child 8:21
2. Isfahan (Billy Strayhorn / Duke Ellington) 6:11
3. He Cares (Jason Moran) 6:42
4. Go Down Moses 7:01
5. Wise One (John Coltrane) 13:13
6. Lush Life (Billy Strayhorn) 8:49
7. Round Midnight (Cootie Williams / Thelonious Monk) 8:32
Personnel:
Archie Shepp: tenor saxophone
Jason Moran: piano
Recorded on September 12th 2017 at La Philharmonie de Paris, during Jazz à la Villette Festival, on November 9th 2018 at the Alte Feuerwache Mannheim, during Enjoy Jazz Festival
Mixing: Raphaël Allain
Mastering: Raphaël Jonin
Drawings: Wozniak
Design: Adelina Kulmakhanova
Artistic coordinator: Monette Berthomier
Executive Producers: Clément Gerbault, Martin Sarrazac
Review:
The words of Exodus suffuse the entirety of Archie Shepp and Jason Moran’s new album of duo performances, from the title to every note the two play. But listening to it, I couldn’t help but think of another passage of scripture that resonates with the soul-rattling, cavernous echo of Shepp’s saxophone: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight the path of the Lord.” As John the Baptist spoke those words in gentle yet emphatic direction to the Judeans then, Shepp’s horn screams to us today how we have failed to straighten that path.
Let My People Go collects seven tracks that Shepp, the iconic saxophonist, activist and artistic polymath, and Moran, arguably the most imaginative pianist of his generation, recorded together in a series of live concerts between 2017 and 2018. You wouldn’t know that from first listen. The pain and fury they evoke in the two spirituals (“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” and “Go Down, Moses”) that make up the center of the record resound with the cries of justice heard over this past summer in the wake of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. As Moran lays down a harmonic bed streaked with Alice Coltrane-esque divine flame, Shepp blows and sings in a voice that cracks constantly; whether from age or heartbreak, it’s devastating either way.
This isn’t all fire and brimstone, however, as Shepp and Moran display empathy and purpose across the other five tracks: four reimagined works by others and one Moran original, “He Cares.” They conjure the magnanimous faith of Trane in their take on “Wise One”—a deep cut from Crescent—and on Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan,” they briefly draw out the dark undertones of Johnny Hodges’ original alto melody before turning the piece into something of their own. As notes tumble from Shepp’s sax, Moran constantly builds new overtones that make the music ring with even deeper harmony. The play between the two musicians exemplifies a kind of accord built on true communication and working toward a common, beautiful good.
Jackson Sinneberg (JazzTimes)
