Jeanne Lee (vocals, tambourine), Archie Shepp (tenor sax), Chicago Beau and Julio Finn (armonica), Dave Burrell (piano), Malachi Favors (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). From the album Blasé (1969).
Jeanne Lee was an American jazz singer, composer, poet, dancer and teacher who combined acrobatic vocal exercices with a compelling sound and a quality that allowed her to alternate between flights in the upper register and emotive performances. She was very accurate and flexible, and moved from the top end of a song or a solo to its middle and bottom accompanying an instrument with an astonishing ease. She studied dance at Bard College, a private art college, where she met pianist Ran Blake. In 1961 Lee began her musical career forming a duet with him. They won a contest at Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night, recorded an album and in 1963 toured Europe.
Album cover
In 1964 Lee moved to California and sang with Ian Anderwood. Afterwards she devoted herself to multidisciplinary performing arts, working among others with the phonetic poet David Hazelton, with whom she was married for a short time. In the late 1960s she returned to jazz singing, her main influence was Abbey Lincoln and worked with most of the best free jazz figures such as Marion Brown, Sunny Murray, Roland Kirk and Archie Shepp. Although many critics regarded Lee as the most creative vocalist on this style, she made very few recordings.
Archie Shepp and Jeanne Lee
The introduction is made by Beau and Finn playing at the same time different bluesy melodies with the harmonicas, and Shepp some notes at the end. The song begins with the rhythm section and a harmonica accompanying Lee, who plays the tambourine and sings calmly while Shepp adds piercing phrases once in a while. Burrell plays a motif over and over again at the same time as the harmonica, which along with Jones’ simple and constant playing, Lee’ vocal magic and Shepp’ brief and fiery interventions, make the group get into a sort of trance until the end.
