London Jazz Festival : Archie Shepp & Joachim Kuhn, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London (GB) - Nov 17, 2011

Empirical were Nathaniel Facey alto sax, Lewis Wright vibraphone/glockenspiel, Robert Mitchell piano, Tom Farmer double bs, Shane Forbes drums. They played compositions from their album Elements of Truth, written by Farmer. Archie Shepp, a far mellower player than when I saw him in his radical 1960s, played masterly, if occasionally subdued, tenor saxophone. But the twinning with Kühn in my view just didn’t work; his piano meandered and he left too much space. Their numbers included Harlem Nocturne, Transmitting and Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman. Reviewed by Fred Grand in Jazz Journal.