Archie Shepp & Joachim Kühn: Pulse Beat live at 42nd German Jazzfestival Frankfurt 2011

Archie Shepp | ts
Joachim Kühn | p
recorded live at HR-Sendesaal, Frankfurt, October 28, 2011

1. Introspection/ Lonely Woman (Joachim Kühn/ Ornette Coleman)
2. Stablemates (Benny Golson)
3. Drivin´ Miss Daisy (Archie Shepp)
4. Nina (Archie Shepp)
5. Improvisation/ Sophisticated Lady (Archie Shepp & Joachim Kühn/ Duke Ellington)

There’s no end to the different ways two great jazz musicians can interact. In the case of German pianist Joachim Kühn and American saxophone player Archie Shepp, the collaboration is especially intriguing. They both came to maturity during the heady days of the Sixties free jazz scene and have played together often since.

The deep rapport between them is instantly apparent, but so are the differences. Kühn’s natural tone is compellingly dark, both as a pianist and a composer. He pursues a melodic idea in a concentrated way, and isn’t much interested in bright colours or fancy pedal-work.

Shepp tends more towards limpid arabesque, and his lovely husky tone is as instantly recognisable as Kühn’s wiry energy. Shepp’s compositions, such as Nina, leaven Kühn’s European seriousness with a sauntering American swing. They complement each other perfectly, which is just as it should be.
At first glance, the pairing of American saxophonist Archie Shepp and German pianist Joachim Kühn may seem an unlikely one. But Wo!man is not the first time the two have performed together. Two or three decades back—Shepp writes in the liner notes that he cannot now remember the year exactly—the saxophonist worked with Kühn in a band led by Finnish drummer Edward Vesala. It was a real pleasure, Shepp says, to have been reunited.
The pleasure is not, moreover, entirely Shepp's, or Kühn's, for Wo!man is a resplendently lyrical album. It is programmed over five sinuous Shepp/Kuhn originals and three jazz standards, Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady," Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" and Earle Hagen and Dick Rogers' "Harlem Nocturne." Shepp's signature rough edges and periodic free flights are intact, but so too are his retentions of balladeers Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, both formative influences: this is above all an album of lush romanticism.