Archie Shepp
Attica Blues

Dog Day Afternoon is a masterpiece of filmmaking where the protagonist, Al Pacino, plays the role of someone who has truly gotten himself into trouble and is botching an easy heist, holding a bunch of people hostage. The presence of cameras outside the bank has attracted many passersby who, upon seeing the attacker, welcome him as a savior of the nation with the cry of “Attica! Attica!”. Well, on a lousy afternoon after book-movie, there's a lack of a record to complete the triad. At this point, "Attica Blues" has the acrid smell of justice sweat with blood spilled between asphalt, reinforced concrete, and, going backward, plantations. Archie Shepp does not hide behind a finger. But let's go back to the title of the album. Of course, it's not a Greek blues. The story of Attica is that of a U.S. prison where dark-skinned inmates of various shades are angry because there are no longer conditions to look in the mirror and see a human being. Since that clever governor doesn't give a damn, the situation worsens. The colored folk get angry, take the guards hostage, and by the fifth day, exasperated, make the mistake of killing two of them. At that point, the indifference of the authorities suddenly vanishes. The special forces intervene and put the situation in order in the usual way: 40 (forty) inmates dead. Welcome to the federal prison of Attica, Buffalo, New York, U.S.A. A place with an entrance similar to Disneyland, in the fine tradition of walls that greet you with cruel sarcasm, where only certain genres of humanity are capable of perpetrating abhorrent disgrace.

Archie Shepp wrote an album (1972) for this event in which human rights have been reduced to the self-proclaimed right of whites to deny prayers, toilet paper, food, water, and showers. Little remains of the Coltrane period because this piece is one of those where you scratch your head, wrinkle your face, and then tap the table. In short, in my opinion, it's a moment of genius because that's what it is. And genius, moved by a critical and radiological eye, as well as by a musical ear extended beyond the boundaries of jazz orthodoxy, is that of simple folks. Thus direct and free. Like a lyrical lament, like the sight that pierces through the red brick and brings you back to the world with music that runs toward promiscuity, like the screams of those who haven't yet let it all out, like the little voice of a hopeful childhood. These last two elements help Shepp create pathos and, from '72 to today, in my opinion, they have the validity of details from a film that has aged well, like the one mentioned. Attica Blues is a subjective voice that, however, catalyzes and becomes vox populi. Here hyper-technical eclecticism is not made a virtue, but rather the path of black passion manifested in backlit drops of sweat under smoke cover is chosen, depicting a racial ordeal in times that, at times, go against themselves. There is a need to put it out there, edible and imaginative, in a form of free jazz where the first word carries the most weight.

This is how Shepp & Co. record an album of which history has guaranteed itself the first copy. The staff employed is impressive because they must give voice to the story in all its facets, do it in a (not so subtly) catchy way and explore, catch a breath (playing with winds), and smell the strongest nuances of soul, blues, jazz, funk, and swing, with the mind of a production architect who knows by heart the gospels of the great black musicians of the twentieth century. An ambitious and successful endeavor, perhaps a bit too “American” at times, but there is a development of the conceptual and musical idea that started from an initial point and concluded by achieving the goal, even with interesting tricks and openings that (now, I can't say for sure) perhaps had not been heard before that year. But I like it, well, I like it very much because it could be one of the records that, together, for example, with Bitches Brew, marks the end of a musical period that has given and determines a lively filiation destined to last. Creating a fusion of gospel mistreatment, funk arrhythmias, blues pulp, swing liveliness, jazz orchestration automatically makes you, ultimately, one of the names of the 20th century that will be remembered. If only for the civil intentions. But there's more, there's Uncle Tom's cabin that has turned into a cement cage. And there’s a pickaxe shaped like a sax, ready to redeem, destroy, and sing, dance, and tremble in voodoo after this sacrifice that tastes like liberation.