Yasmina, a Black Woman
Yasmina, a Black Woman is a jazz album by Archie Shepp, recorded in 1969 in Paris for BYG Actuel. It features musicians from the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The first track, giving its title to the album, is a long free jazz piece by an 11-piece orchestra; in it, the references to Africa that Shepp had experimented with only a few weeks earlier in Algiers are to be found in the use of African percussion instruments, or the African incantations sung by Shepp himself at the beginning of the track. The other two pieces, a  homage to Sonny Rollins written by trombonist Grachan Moncur III and a standard, played by a more traditional quintet and quartet respectively, are more reminiscent of the hard bop genre, although the fiery playing of the musicians, notably Shepp himself, gives them a definite avant-garde edge. It was originally issued on CD by Affinity (paired with "Poem for Malcolm"), mastered from an incredibly noisy vinyl source and later reissued by Charly (also paired with "Poem for Malcolm") from the original master tapes.