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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Audio CD
The octet Archie Shepp surrounded himself with in 1966 was filled with new and old faces. The twin trombones of Roswell Rudd and Grachan Moncur III embodied this, but so did bassist Charlie Haden and trumpeter Tommy Turrentine, while familiar figures like drummer Beaver Harris and tubaist Howard Johnson had been part of Shepp's regular band. There are four tracks on Mama Too Tight, all of them in some way acting as extensions of the opening three-part suite, "A Portrait of Robert Thomson (As a Young Man)." Shepp had hit his stride here compositionally. The track is, at first, a seeming free jazz blowout, but then traces the history of jazz, gospel, and blues through its three sections. Certainly there is plenty of atonality, but there is plenty of harmonic and rhythmic invention too. The piece, almost 19 minutes in length, has an intricate architecture that uses foreshadowing techniques and complex resolution methods. The title track is a post-bop blues swinger with a killer front-line riff turning in and out as the trombones go head to head. And finally, "Basheer," with its Eastern modality that transposes itself toward blues and folk music, becomes a statement on the transitional ties the '60s were ushering in musically. Here again, lots of free blowing, angry bursts of energy, and shouts of pure revelry are balanced with Ellingtonian elegance and restraint that was considerable enough to let the lyric line float through and encourage more improvisation. This is Shepp at his level best.
Archie Shepp Mama Too Tight Track Listing
1. A Portrait of Robert Thompson (As A Young Man)
2. Mama Too Tight
3. Theme For Ernie
4. Basheer
Archie Shepp Mama Too Tight Track Listing
1. A Portrait of Robert Thompson (As A Young Man)
2. Mama Too Tight
3. Theme For Ernie
4. Basheer
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
a fascinating album
2 Jun 1999
Format:Audio CD
archie shepp, like pharoah sanders, came up through the john coltrane experiments. Shepp dove straight into free jazz as this album attests. The side long (on vinyl) opener(the first four tracks listed here) is a collage of colors and sounds, sounding at times like something charles ives might have conceived as an exploration of american folk music, but with a modernist twist. there is always something new to discover with each repeated listening as layer after layer unfolds. the second side opens with some downright funky stuff. 'mama too tight' wiggles its rear all the way through, even though the soloists push the limits of the song form as far as it will go. the bass/drums never lose the beat, though. 'theme for ernie' i think is a tribute to ernie watts, but i'm not sure. whomever it is for, it carries a solid r-n-b base to some out there places. it's a lot of fun, all the way through. The album closes with a churning chant that builds in its intensity, but remains a fascinating sculpture of sound. a really fine album.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Free but Funky
21 Oct 2005
Format:Audio CD
This is free jazz but real free jazz, not aimless improv. Basically you get classic Coltrane style free jazz combined with Horace Silver style soul jazz. This is jazz that takes chances but is not afraid to swing. During the middle of the first piece, in the midst of a free jazz storm, the band suddenly breaks into King Cotton. This is a statement about the emerging civil rights/black power movement and the origins of jazz without going into arch and obvious statements like Shepp's later Poem for Malcolm. And with an (at least to a person knowledgable about jazz)all star line up including the legendary Grachan Moncur III and Charlie Haden from Ornette Coleman's band what is not to enjoy?
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Theme For Ernie
22 Jan 2003
Format:Audio CD
sorry 'A Customer - June 2, 1999' but that song was written by Philadelphian Fred Lacey, in memory of NY alto saxophonist Ernest Albert Henry, who died aged 31 on December 29, 1957. This beautiful ballad has been recorded many times by jazz artists, e.g. John Coltrane's version on his February 1958 Soultrane session.
as already mentioned above, there is a lot of demanding music on Mama Too Tight, perhaps not the best Archie Shepp for beginners -- try Four for Trane or Fire Music first. Duke Ellington's "Prelude To A Kiss" is beautifully interpolated during a portion of track 1, though.
Shepp's octet group recorded here is unsurpassed, with Howard Johnson (of Taj Mahal fame) on tuba, trumpeter Tommy Turrentine (Stanley's brother), the dual trombonists Grachan Moncur III and Roswell Rudd (check out his own Impulse album Everywhere, available domestically on the Mixed CD -- one of the greatest free-jazz sessions of all time, including the Haden/Harris rhythm team), clarinetist Perry Robinson and a rock-solid rhythm section of Charlie Haden, bass and Beaver Harris, drums.
Mr. Shepp's own liner notes acknowledge the album to be "at once a tribute to a woman of paramount virtue and [RE: tracks 1, 3, and 4] an eulogy for others. (Ernie Henry, Robert Thompson, and Basheer were three Black artists who passed away at painfully abortive ages.)"
as already mentioned above, there is a lot of demanding music on Mama Too Tight, perhaps not the best Archie Shepp for beginners -- try Four for Trane or Fire Music first. Duke Ellington's "Prelude To A Kiss" is beautifully interpolated during a portion of track 1, though.
Shepp's octet group recorded here is unsurpassed, with Howard Johnson (of Taj Mahal fame) on tuba, trumpeter Tommy Turrentine (Stanley's brother), the dual trombonists Grachan Moncur III and Roswell Rudd (check out his own Impulse album Everywhere, available domestically on the Mixed CD -- one of the greatest free-jazz sessions of all time, including the Haden/Harris rhythm team), clarinetist Perry Robinson and a rock-solid rhythm section of Charlie Haden, bass and Beaver Harris, drums.
Mr. Shepp's own liner notes acknowledge the album to be "at once a tribute to a woman of paramount virtue and [RE: tracks 1, 3, and 4] an eulogy for others. (Ernie Henry, Robert Thompson, and Basheer were three Black artists who passed away at painfully abortive ages.)"
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