Recorded in 1981 in a quartet setting featuring the great drummer
John Betsch, bassist
Santi Debriano, and pianist
Ken Werner,
I Know About the Life doesn't so much explore these standards as re-contextualize them in the canon. Opening with
Thelonious Monk's "Well You Needn't,"
Shepp does to
Monk's tune what
Monk did regularly with pop tunes: he smears the melody all around a different harmonic context, adds a boatload of blues feel and a smattering of soul. His double times with
Betsch in the middle of the cut are stunning and humorous, and in spite of his solo honks and squeals, he never loses sight of
Monk's tune. On his own "I Know About the Life," one can hear
Lockjaw Davis,
Ben Webster, and
John Coltrane in his playing as
Shepp builds on the deep soul and blues roots of his 1970s records like
Cry of My People. The other two cuts here, a steaming muscular and frenetic read of
Coltrane's "Giant Steps," and a nearly heartbreaking version of "'Round Midnight," reveal that the tradition for
Shepp was not as it was for the coming reign of neo-trad revisionists who would re-imagine it in their own images: for
Shepp here, as on many of his 1980s recordings (check "I Feel Like Going Home" with
Horace Parlan), the tradition was an open-ended conversation to be annotated in the ballroom and on the back porch anytime one wished to step into it.
Shepp's perception of the language of
Ellington was -- and remains -- no less profound than
Ellington's understanding of the language of
Mingus, or
Mingus' of
Eric Dolphy's. The whispering sweetness tinged with crackling blues feel in "'Round Midnight" is one of the most important reads of this tune because it gives back to
Monk what so many generic players tried to take away: the blood that lies at the heart of the ballad. Hearing
Shepp in this light makes any serious jazz fan completely reconsider his contribution after the 1970s.