Archie Shepp & The NY Contemporary Five

The ten tunes (71 min.) on this CD were recorded live at the famous Montmartre jazz club in Copenhagen in 1963. This is one of the best and most important avante garde jazz albums ever made, its importance enhanced by the fact that the quintet was formed specifically to come and play in Copenhagen and was disbanded when the musicians returned to New York. The most “advanced” number is a 15 minute-long tune called “The Trio” which uses both modal scales and changing meters. The band is led by three of the absolute best of the avante garde musicians at the time: Don Cherry on cornet, Archie Shepp on tenor sax and John Tchicai on alto sax. The music is heavily inspired by alto player Ornette Coleman and pianist Cecil Taylor, and features three Ornette Coleman compositions and two by Thelonious Monk. The brilliant, high-energy performance of the musicians on this CD is an example of improvisational, modern jazz at its absolute best.