07.02.2020
56
I recently acquired the incredible galaxy box set and am just amazed at how incredibly great Pepper was.I already had titles such as getting together and plus 11 and other Pepper titles but the depth of this box set truly amazes me!I think Pepper in in the very top of the greatest sax players of all time and the more i listen the more convinced I am.yes i know he is highly regarded but you ask people who the all time greats are you will always hear coltrane and rollins etc but rarely pepper.he deserves to be in the same discussion. As good as the fifties Contemporary records are, Pepper never played better than on those Village Vanguard sessions in the mid-seventies, when he fully re-established himself as an artist and not a junkie has-been. I'd even go so far as to say that no jazz saxophone player ever matched Pepper's playing on that occasion. He had assimilated what Coltrane and the free players had done and integrated it with his bop-based style (and with swing- Pepper identifies Jimmie Lunceford's band as an influence on his playing, and you can hear that, too, throughout his career). Those sessions are like an overview of the history of jazz through that date.
And, as usual, Pepper plays as if his life depended on it. I'm a big fan of Art. I added yet another slab of vinyl of his to my ever growing collection of Art Pepper lps.
He played beautifully almost to the very end. He tried a lot of things with his art despite his struggles with narcotics. His recording with the orchestra setting 'Winter Moon' which is part of the O.P.'
S box set is one of the best of that mini-genre. I prefer it over Charlie Parker With Strings. Two other recordings on Galaxy are his duos with George Cables (piano) that I think are superb showcases for his gentle side.
Then you have that amazing run at the Village Vanguard plus a ton of classic recordings with Contemporary, with nary a stinker in the bunch. And I'm not very fluent in his early days with Stan Kenton nad Benny Carter. He did record with many artists on Contemporary. A guy I know from work has a massive collection of Pepper's recordings so my collection is dwarfwd by his and Pepper has quite a lengthy dicography. My favorite overall labels are Comtemporary and Galaxy. He was really burning towards the end like he was trying to make up for 'lost' time.
If that Galaxy label doesn't cover Contmporary at all then you still have a nice head start in collecting Art Pepper. The fact that there are box sets documenting various stages of his career, not to mention audiophile editions of the key titles in multiple formats, means that Art Pepper is not under-appreciated. Compared to Lady Gaga or Michael Buble, yes, he's unappreciated, but that's true of almost every other jazz musician, too.Under-appreciated would be equally compelling players who plied their trade in less well-documented cities than New York or L.A. Nowadays even once upon a time specialty items like Tina Brooks have been satisfactorily reissued.
Art Pepper Albums
Art Pepper, born in Gardena, California on September 1, 1925 and raisedin nearby San Pedro, began playing clarinet at age 9 and, by 15, was performingin Lee Young’s band at the Club Alabam on Central Avenue, the homeof jazz in prewar Los Angeles.He joined Stan Kenton’s band, touring the U.S. And gaining fame, butwas drafted in 1943 serving as an MP in London and performing with some Britishjazz bands. He returned to the States and to Kenton, touring and recording.In 1952 he placed second only to Charlie Parker in the Down Beat jazz poll.Probably his most famous recording from that period is his stunning performanceof “Art Pepper,” written by Shorty Rogers (as part of a seriesof charts Kenton had commissioned to feature members of his band).Art left Stan Kenton in 1951 to form his own group, occasionally recordingfor Rogers and others. He signed with Contemporary Records in 1957.From the beginning Art’s playing combined a tender delicacy of tonewith a purity of narrative line—a gift for storytelling that was madeirresistible by an inherent, dancing, shouting, moaning inability to everstop swinging.He was one of the few alto players to resist the style and tone of CharlieParker. What he failed to resist was the lure of drugs, ubiquitous, at thattime, among jazz musicians.
And although some users managed to get throughand over their addictions, Art, survivor of a rocky childhood (alcoholicneglectful mother, alcoholic violent father), unbalanced from the get-go,never did quite triumph over his, though he may have fought them to a draw.So, in 1952, he began a long series of hospitalizations and incarcerationsfor violations of the drug laws of his time—possession, internal possession(“marks”), and then for violations of his previous releases (morepossessions and internal possessions). In time, he became a petty thief,a real thief, a robber (though not an armed robber; his fellow criminalsthought he was too crazy to be trusted with a gun).
He served time for theFeds (Terminal Island) and for the State of California (San Quentin). Heprided himself on being “a stand-up guy,” a good criminal.All this history makes a pretty gripping story as it’s told by Artwith his wife Laurie Pepper in their book, Straight Life (DaCapo). What’ssurprising is that the music he managed to make during irregular bursts offreedom was enthralling, too.
The gift was starved for the spotlight, foropportunities for performing and recording, but it flowered in the dark,became deeper and more soulful. The performances—from The Art PepperQuartet (1952) and Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (with Miles Davis’srhythm section) on Contemporary (1957) all the way through the recordingshe made at the Village Vanguard (Contemporary, 1977) and his later recordingwith strings (Winter Moon, Galaxy, 1981)—are brilliant, poignant, anda joy to hear. The rigor and abandon with which he lived his life were presentin every note he played.Art Pepper died June 15, 1982 of a cerebral hemorrhage.
But the 1979 publicationof Straight Life and accompanying press had revived Art’s career. WithLaurie’s help, he spent the last years of his life trying to make upfor lost time, making each performance a life-or-death occasion, touringworldwide with his own bands, recording over a hundred albums, writing songs,winning polls, respect, and adulation.Most of his albums are still available for sale.
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Art Pepper Vanguard Rapidshare 2017
Laurie Pepper is releasingthe best of what remains unreleased and is working on a movie based on thebook, Straight Life.Media Contact:Terri Hinte510-234-8781.