Archie Shepp And The Attica Blues Orchestra

Barbican Centre, London EC1

5 Stars

On September 9 1971, in direct response to their conditions of incarceration and the murder of the inspirational Soledad Brother writer George Jackson in California's San Quentin Prison, the prisoners of Attica jail in New York State rebelled and took 42 prison staff hostage.

After four days of negotiations and on the orders of the multimillionaire state Governor Nelson Rockefeller, police opened fire on the prisoners. Thirty-nine people were killed, including 10 prison employees.

Attica Blues, Archie Shepp's epochal sonic narrative of the events, released in 1972 and re-recorded this year, provided a magnificent finale to the London Jazz Festival.

Shepp's new orchestra is an amalgam of contemporary French musicians and US veterans like pianist and vocalist Amina Claudine Myers, Art Ensemble of Chicago percussionist Famoudou Don Moye and bassist Reggie Washington.

More than four decades on Shepp's music has lost none of its powerful militancy, despite the fact that many of the younger French players were not born when the original events took place.

Shepp's rasping tenor sax soon showed its beauty in the opener, Cal Massey's Quiet Dawn, with a rumbling baritone sax solo from Jean-Philippe Scali.

Myers sang sublimely on Arms and Denise King's vocal on The Stars Are In Your Eyes was followed by a gruff, Ben Webster-like solo by Shepp. The Cry Of My People held a burnished trumpet solo to its heart by Stephane Belmondo.

Shepp's threnody to his teenage Philadelphia cousin Steam, killed in a street fight, brought the 100-plus teenagers killed in London street violence since 2007 to mind. Shepp's soprano rang out its sad praise song in contrast to his tenor singing out joyously on Goodbye Sweet Pops, Massey's tribute to Louis Armstrong.

But the two most memorable performances were of Ellington's anthem Come Sunday from his Black, Brown And Beige suite and Shepp's roaring and hugely evocative Blues For Brother George Jackson.

In the former, the full 25-piece orchestra created a massive sound behind Shepp's breathy, balladic tenor and in the blues for Jackson, his impassioned notes sent you directly back to the beautifully crafted and defiant words of Soledad Brother.

The final choruses of Attica Blues and its US-European cultural unity was certainly not the music of nostalgia but a message for today.

The past embraced the present and Shepp's brave call to action will surely shape the future.