Archie Shepp, Life at the Donaueschingen Music Festival (side A)

This one is a live album, even if the title gets a bit confusing. Life at the Donaueschingen Music Festival was recorded in 1967, but not released until '72. It marks one of Shepp's earliest extended chaos experiments after his earlier albums had more recognizable tune structures. At this point, the playing itself often directly references jazz, even if the structures do not. Shepp is clearly aware of his contemporaries—the minimal "small instrument" percussion surrounding the opening bass section recalls Roscoe Mitchell's work at the time, and some of the group interplay shows a bit of Ayler's influence. The group here is among Shepp's most impressive, with Rudd, Moncur, Garrison, and Beaver Harris accompanying him. The live recording doesn't sound great, especially all of the weird space around the drums, but its flaws have aged nicely. Despite the apparent misspelling of "live", the front cover looks great, with Shepp's dashiki referencing playing cards! I'm still trying to determine whether the trombonist warming up in the back or the fellow intently watching Shepp is Roswell Rudd—they both look a bit like him.