Archie Shepp (1937) is an American jazz saxophonist who alongside John Coltrane has been a leading figure in the avant-garde jazz movement since the 1960s.
Archie Shepp grew up in Philadelphia, and was a pioneering voice in free-form jazz in the 1960s, playing with John Coltrane, Sun Ra, and Don Cherry among others. Later he fused African music and free-form jazz with a clear political consciousness, and recorded several albums for Impulse!, such as “The Magic of Juju” and “Attica Blues”. Shepp has also taught as a professor of both Music and African-American Studies, and has written several plays for theatre.
