Archie Shepp
The Magic of Ju-Ju

LA RECENSIONE

Don't think it's jazz. That "jazz is the name white people gave to black music."

And so...

Five percussionists and a saxophonist in the confines of a room speckled with stars that are not stars at all. This is not the sky, it's the here and now.

Trance, possessed sound, impossible and furious yin yang between Afrobeat and something unknown that goes everywhere. A continuous, relentless necessary beat, a constant breaking of boundaries.

Two concepts, two phrases, two guiding stars: "rhythm is my center" and "I play for those who suffer." Until they're no longer phrases, and you're inside something, in the sense that you are part of that something.

Stop...

Breathe. Pause for a turn.

Two minutes of waiting, the almost nothing of a free march. Sacred irreverence that causes damage even on a mood of sly and amused elegance. End of side one.

Synthesis: it would be nice to be a note of this music, it would be nice to be alive.

Beginning of side two, not bad, but a roll of the dice brings me back to the start, in that star-filled room that is not filled with stars. Too beautiful (too magical) (too everything) that union of Africa and Jazz, no, of Africa and Africa.

Vision sustained by rhythm, two purities walking arm in arm, two coins with holes in the pocket. With Shepp who (mad, raging, vivid) spits out his demons, a "horrifying shock mass" that growls, screams, sobs, whimpers.

And with the drum men who, even while obeying a very rigid scheme, create a sort of primordial space of freedom.

Stop.

Breathe. Pause for a turn.

Ok, now you can return to side two: there's much less Africa, but beautiful, beautiful is the fury...

Beautiful...

The fury...that mad, raging, vivid thing...that taunting delight...

"I play music that speaks of my death at your hands but I rejoice because, despite you, I am alive."