Archie Shepp & the New York Contemporary Five is a live album by the New York Contemporary Five recorded at the Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen, Denmark on November 15, 1963 and featuring saxophonists Archie Shepp and John Tchicai, trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Don Moore and drummer J. C. Moses. The album was originally released on the Sonet label in 1963 as New York Contemporary 5 in two separate volumes on LP and later as an edited concert on a single CD, removing the track "Cisum." The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow calls the album "historically significant". (wiki) * * * by Scott Yanow This historically significant CD has ten of the 11 selections recorded by The New York Contemporary Five (and originally issued on two separate LPs) on November 11, 1963. The short-lived group, which consists of cornetist Don Cherry, altoist John Tchicai, Archie Shepp on tenor, bassist Don Moore and drummer J.C. Moses, was avant-garde for the period, influenced most by Ornette Coleman's Quartet; the participation of Coleman's cornetist certainly helped. However Tchicai (although sometimes hinting at Coleman) had a different approach than Ornette Coleman and it was obvious that Shepp had already developed his own original voice and was the group's most passionate soloist. Together this very interesting quintet (which would soon break up) performs pieces by Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk (short melodic renditions of "Monk's Mood" and "Crepescule with Nellie"), Bill Dixon, Tchicai, Shepp and Cherry.