Goin' Home (album) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Jazz listeners were divided in their reaction to Goin' Home upon its release. According to Doug Ramsey of Texas Monthly, some listeners were surprised by Shepp's stylistic change, while others viewed it as a "fulfillment of promise." Ramsey felt that it revealed a "tenderness and humor" from Shepp that his 1960s work only hinted at, writing that it "disclosed an Archie Shepp that many had never known, warm rather than blistering hot, witty rather than contemptuously sardonic." John Swenson, writing in The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide (1985), praised Shepp's work with Parlan and gave Goin' Home a five-star rating, finding it "particularly heartfelt." Fernando Gonzalez of The Boston Globe called it "exquisite", and C. Gerald Fraser of The New York Times wrote in 1987 that "this marriage of avant-garde and soul" is "regarded as a classic." Art Lange of CODA magazine praised Shepp's "exquisite control" of his instrument, which he "quite literally" makes "able talk", and found the spirituals to have been "sung" rather than just performed. Lange added that the emotional aspect is more impressive than the technical skill and stated:

he result is a truly spiritual music — one which is tender, passionate, muscular, uplifting, sensual, fiery, heartfelt, and heaven-storming all at once ... you can hear the same cry heard in Mahalia Jackson, in Billie Holiday, in Lester Young, in Ornette's piercing wail, in Ayler's wide-eyed scream, in Mingus, in Coltrane. It is not a cry of lament or a cry of weakness — it is a cry of strength, of affirmation, of soul.

In a retrospective review, Allmusic editor Scott Yanow gave the album four-and-a-half out of five stars and found the performances "compelling". He commented that listeners who are "only familiar with Shepp's earlier Fire Music" will see the album as a "revelation." Music author Tom Moon felt that its tempoless mood "gives the themes an extra shot of majesty" and found it "supremely melodic", writing that both Shepp and Parlan "do whatever is necessary to bring the spirit to the forefront." Richard Cook gave it four out of four stars in The Penguin Guide to Jazz (2002). JazzTimes cited Goin' Home as one of "the finest of his career", and Tom Hull of The Village Voice cited it as SteepleChase's best release. Phil Johnson of The Independent wrote that the album "can be listened to almost without cease." Jazz historian Eric Nisenson called it "one of the most moving albums of the Seventies", but qualified his praise by critiquing that Shepp, an iconic figure in free jazz, "was no longer the firebrand who had so frightened and unsettled some white critics and jazz fans." Nisenson felt that, like Pharoah Sanders, Shepp's "trial by fire at the heart of the Sixties avant-garde had made him an unusually expressive musician," and Goin' Home showed that he was "finding inspiration in the entire black musical tradition."