Archie Shepp

Real Name: Archie Vernon Shepp

Archie Shepp, born May 24, 1937 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is an American jazz saxophonist. He mainly plays tenor saxophone but also soprano saxophone, clarinet and piano; he is also a singer, jazz composer and playwright. He is also known for his Afrocentric positions in the 1960s, denouncing the injustices suffered by African-Americans, within the New York Contemporary Five as well as through various collaborations with Horace Parlan, and his contemporaries from the New Thing at Newport, mainly Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane. He is one of the musical figures of the Black Arts Movement.