Archie Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, at May 24, 1937.
His first important work was with Cecil Taylor in 1960. He then became involved with Don Cherry an d John Tchicai in the New York Contemporary Five in the United States and Europe. From the mid 60’s he has led his own groups. His playing attitudes in that period included anarchic, shrieking protest music; tender, Ben Websterized Ellington ballads; marching band segments inserted among his most stormy passages; and parodies of popular songs such as “ The Shadow of Your Smile”. In 1969 he became associated with Cal Massey, playing his compositions and in 1972, a musical on which they collaborated, “Lady Day: A Musical Tragedy”, was performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. While in Paris in 1969, Shepp played with other musicians ordinarily associated with the bob movement, Hank Mobley and Philly Joe Jones. He was later heard playing “Hankerin”, an early 50’s Mobley piece and it seemed that this eclectic, with his fingers in drama, poetry and sociology, was becoming even more diversified in his musical outlook. In the 70’s Shepp embarked on a new aspect of his career, that of a college professor, teaching at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where he was in residence in 1975. His mid 70’s group, like his mid-60’s edition had a trombone in the front line. But Charles Majid Greenlee (Know as Harneefan Mageed with Dizzy Gillepsie in the 40’s) was a different sound and style from either Roswell Rudd or Grachan Moncur. Shepp makes no distinction between folk and art music. “I don’t because I don’t believe in the world ‘ art’. It’s, to me, not functional, it’s passive”, he says. “It’s Bourgeois in the sense that art develops at a point when people have leisure time… So art music is something that I don’t really subscribe to. I think essentially the same way the music is played and enjoyed in the black community”. Yet Shepp is typical of the wave of musicians who emerged in the 60’s who essentially do not perform for “inner city” audiences. His brand of emotional-celebral music has had far more impact on white intellectuals that on ghetto residents. In addition to many European tours, he played in 1969 in North Africa. Also he played on many festivals, a.o. on the Newport Jazz Festival in New York in 1972 and 1973, where he led his own group with Grachan Moncur III and Dave Burrell. He took part in the dedication of Louis Armstrong Stadium, and participated in the Radio City jam session.