Archie Shepp (born May 24, 1937) is an American jazz saxophonist, educator and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz.

Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began playing banjo with his father, then studied piano and saxophone while attending high school in Germantown. He studied drama at Goddard College from 1955 to 1959.

He played in a Latin jazz band for a short time before joining the band of avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor. Shepp’s first recording under his own name, Archie Shepp – Bill Dixon Quartet, was released on Savoy Records in 1962 and featured a composition by Ornette Coleman. In 1962, he performed with Dixon at the 8th World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki, Finland. Along with alto saxophonist John Tchicai and trumpeter Don Cherry, he formed the New York Contemporary Five. John Coltrane‘s admiration for Shepp led to recordings for Impulse! Records, the first of which was Four for Trane in 1964, an album of mainly Coltrane compositions on which he was joined by Tchicai, trombonist Roswell Rudd, trumpeter Alan Shorter, bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Charles Moffett.