Archie Shepp

Bluesy, aggressive, typically expressive. Splashes (subtitled Tribute to Wilbur Little) is an album by saxophonist Archie Shepp's Quartet which was recorded in Holland in 1987 and released on the L+R label. With Horace Parlan (p), Harry Emmery (b), and Clifford Jarvis (d).  It's one of those deep European records that gets missed because Shepp was recording so much and in so many ways overseas in his later years. The style here is a great distillation of the modes he was exploring in the years after Impulse. It's a small group rendition of the spiritual ideas of that time, but with more of a focus on Shepp's amazing tenor tone. It's even more maturely expressive here than it was before, to the point where we love this time period more and more as the years go by