Archie Shepp is jazz's favorite cantankerous firebrand - a rebel with a very noble cause, willing to preach to anyone who will listen. Shepp's battle against racial injustice has taken the form of several radicals brands of jazz music, all of them equally intense and personal. The Magic of Ju-Ju, one of Shepp's most treasured entries into the free jazz canon is exactly what the title evokes: music as fearsome ritual, albeit a ritual that's as fun as it is fearsome. The real magic here, almost needless to say, lies within the nearly nineteen minute title track, a righteous voodoo ceremony of sax skronk and relentless African percussion; it's soul jazz at its most gloriously soulful. Shepp is at the top of his game here: not content to simply groove in tune with the rhythm, he shrieks and stabs like the chief houngan in this primitive ritual. And while the rest of the album doesn't quite match the power of the title track, the unconventional waltz of "You're What This Day Is All About" is a brief pleasure, "Shazam" careens back and forth across frantic and desperate drumming from Norman Connors, and "Sorry 'Bout That" revisits the Afrocentric pulse of the title track. This remarkable album is Shepp at his most playful and original. Have a listen.
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