STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Archie Shepp Quartet, Ronnie Scott’s, London
Tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp has lost none of his fiery commitment
Insurrectionary: Archie Shepp
[Schorle/Creative Commons]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
AS OCTOGENARIAN Archie Shepp plays Wise One by his old Philadelphia confrere John Coltrane, the decades melt away.
His moving horn eulogy, with drummer Steve McCraven’s flashing silver brushes and Darryl Hall’s plunging bass, deepen the sense of the long-time loss of a genius.
He begins the set with Elmo Hope’s Hope Two and that surly, gruff-noted yet astonishingly fluid tone suddenly lightens with an allusion to Softly, as a Morning Sunrise, as if every conceivable melody is stored in his horn and could be let loose at any moment.
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