Yasmina, a Black Woman is a jazz album by Archie Shepp,
recorded in 1969 in Paris for BYG Actuel records. 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 eleven 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
mastered from an incredibly noisy vinyl source and later reissued by Charly
from the original master tapes.