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Art Pepper
Alto Saxophonist Art Pepper, a native of Gardena California, played in the overtly emotional manner that came to define the West Coast style. His solo approach was always passionate, from early recordings made with Stan Kenton's orchestra during his years with the band (1943 and 1946-52) and in jam sessions on LA’s Central Avenue.
Records and club work with Shorty Rogers and his Giants beginning in 1951 provided more room for his solo skills, and by 1952 he began cutting more intimate and open quartet and quintet sessions under his own name. By this time he had already developed a dependence on alcohol, pills, and heroin that led to an erratic lifestyle and (in 1952) the first of several arrests and incarcerations. For the remainder of the decade, Pepper alternated stretches in prison with bursts of recording activity. Two of these
latter occasions found him teaming productively with what was then the most prominent rhythm section of them all, Miles Davis's rhythm section: Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Jo Jones. This resulted in one of Art Pepper's greatest album Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section. He also recorded two successful Blue Note albums with Chet Baker. Pepper was always present when his East Coast colleagues visited the West Coast especially the man he came to admire greatly, John Coltrane. It was Coltrane's example that moved Pepper to become even more direct and searing in his own improvisations.
Yet another arrest in 1961 and the subsequent sentence to San Quentin effectively ended Pepper's career for 15 years. There was a brief stint playing tenor in the Buddy Rich big band in 1968, and a stay in the Synanon drug facility at around that time.
Only by the mid-70s was Pepper able to put his career back on track. It was then that his renewed recording career (in 1975) and first appearances on the East Coast and in Japan ('77) brought him the acclaim of a living legend. There was a sudden general and media interest in his life and his return, which brought new festival invitations and club performances. In 1978 he signed with the Galaxy label which collaboration brought a stream of recordings that included some highly regarded work in which it became clear that years of physical and emotional wear and tear had aged his tone gracefully.
Pepper never fully conquered his demons, even after publication of his brutal autobiography Straight Life in 1979 and subsequent documentary films.
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Celebrating Art Pepper, Al Cohn and Marty Paich on their centennial.
by Larry Slater
It is hard to even imagine the history of jazz without the many musicians born 100 years ago.There were the icons, like Roy Haynes, Oscar Peterson, Gene Ammons and James Moody, as well as long forgotten artists like Dodo Marmarosa , Leo Parker and Sahib ShihabIn this hour, you'll hear gifted musician who had long productive careers in jazz, leaving us a rich legacy of recordings.Mel Torme began his career as a jazz singer, ...
Continue ReadingArt Pepper: An Afternoon in Norway: The Kongsberg Concert
by Jack Kenny
This album is not just music; it is a glimpse into one of the most compelling stories in Art Pepper's musical history from the impossibly handsome alto saxophonist with Stan Kenton's orchestra to a drug-fueled inmate in San Quentin, culminating in a glorious renaissance. The sheer logistics surrounding this album are impressive. Consider this whirlwind: finishing a stint at Ronnie Scott's, early on early Sunday morning, a dash to Heathrow airport, a flight to Oslo, Norway, a car ...
Continue ReadingArt Pepper: Geneva 1980
by Jack Kenny
"Do not go gentle into the good night," Dylan Thomas wrote that; Art Pepper did it. He did not go gentle. He raged with his horn across continents: Asia, Europe, the Americas. There was gentleness too at times. He raged against his own wasted times. It all fuelled his playing and he was able to deliver powerful and emotionally-charged performances. Art Pepper with his dissolute, angelic face with Laurie Pepper as his Boswell collecting, remembering, recording, preserving. According ...
Continue ReadingArt Pepper: Gettin' Together
by Richard J Salvucci
Roughly about a year before Art Pepper was sentenced to 3 to 20 years in San Quentin State Prison on heroin charges, he made this recording. Miles Davis' rhythm section was briefly available in Los Angeles. So Pepper had a chance to reprise his wonderful performance in Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (Original Jazz Classics, 1957), albeit with different personnel and with the addition of Conte Candoli on trumpet. The recording was a kind of coda to the first ...
Continue ReadingArt Pepper: Art Of Art
by Alberto Bazzurro
Registrato dal vivo al festival genovese di Villa Imperiale il 6 luglio 1981, vale a dire nel periodo in cui Art Pepper, in una sorta di oasi estrema da quel mix esplosivo di tossicodipendenza e conseguenti reclusioni che ha segnato buona parte della sua vita, era tornato a lavorare sodo, incidendo in studio album fra i suoi migliori, nonché girando il mondo alla testa di un quartetto di grande affidabilità di cui il pianista George Cables era il perno (ricordiamo ...
Continue ReadingArt Pepper: Art Of Art
by Jack Kenny
This is late period Art Pepper, he died a year later, in 1982. The music is full of striving, intensity, urgency. Pepper's sound and tone changed over the years moving from the smooth alto with the Stan Kenton band, altering to a more searching Lee Konitz-like in the fifties, before absorbing an edge from John Coltrane in the 1960s. The tartness, the darkness, the sudden cries, the rhythmic twists are pure Pepper. Laurie Pepper, Pepper's partner, who sustained ...
Continue ReadingLate-Period Art Pepper Box Sets
by C. Michael Bailey
In his essay, “Endgame," which opens the liner notes to Art Pepper: The Complete Galaxy Recordings (Galaxy, 1989), music critic Gary Giddens said of Art Pepper's professional comeback: “Pepper's sudden reappearance in 1975 was something of a second coming in musical circles. For the next seven years, his frequent recordings and tours, and the publication in 1979 of the autobiography he and his wife Laurie wrote, Straight Life, transformed him from a gifted altoist who had made ...
Continue ReadingArt Pepper: An Afternoon in Norway (1980)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Art Pepper spent much of his life in search of the love and admiration that eluded him in childhood. Throughout his career, he carried around the trauma inflicted on him by his parents. For Pepper, he entered the world in 1925 as a mistake, and his very presence quickly intruded on his mother’s alcohol-fueled good times. She had tried repeatedly to miscarry, and her serial attempts to terminate the pregnancy left Pepper with rickets and jaundice at birth. Doctors didn’t ...
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Art Pepper: Smack Up, 1960
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Recorded over two days in October 1960 for Los Angeles's Contemporary Records, Art Pepper's Smack Up featured six compositions by saxophonists, five of whom had recorded their songs for the label years earlier. It's unclear whether Pepper was compelled to do this by Contemporary or the idea was suggested to him. It's doubtful he came up with the concept on his own. The alto saxophonist was joined by trumpeter Jack Sheldon, pianist Pete Jolly, bassist Jimmy Bond and drummer Frank ...
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Backgrounder: Art Pepper and the Marty Paich 4
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
In August 1956, Art Pepper was teamed with Marty Paich on piano, Buddy Clark on bass and Frank Capp on drums on a Hollywood recording session for Tampa Records. The label was founded in Los Angeles a year earlier by Robert Scherman and Irving Shorten, and the album was Pepper's first since 1954 due to time spent in jail for drugs. On The Marty Paich Quartet Featuring Art Pepper, the alto saxophonist plays with a mournful jubilation, sailing up and ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Art Pepper
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Art Pepper's birthday today!
Alto Saxophonist Art Pepper, a native of Gardena California, played in the overtly emotional manner that came to define the West Coast style. His solo approach was always passionate, from early recordings made with Stan Kenton's orchestra during his years with the band (1943 and 1946-52) and in jam sessions on LA’s Central Avenue. Records and club work with Shorty Rogers and his Giants beginning in 1951 provided more room for ...
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Doc: Art Pepper - Notes From a Jazz Survivor
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Loneliness on the road and the dread of performing live in the early 1950s drove Art Pepper to snort heroin. What followed was a lifelong addiction. As he said regarding his stage anxiety, “I'd get sick to my stomach, and the only way I could handle it was getting loaded." It's hard to believe when you listen to Pepper play that he could be hampered by nerves. Such anxiety was more common than not, not only among jazz musicians under ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Art Pepper
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Art Pepper's birthday today!
Alto Saxophonist Art Pepper, a native of Gardena California, played in the overtly emotional manner that came to define the West Coast style. His solo approach was always passionate, from early recordings made with Stan Kenton's orchestra during his years with the band (1943 and 1946-52) and in jam sessions on LA’s Central Avenue. Records and club work with Shorty Rogers and his Giants beginning in 1951 provided more room for ...
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Art Pepper and Warne Marsh
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
There are great jazz musicians. And then there are great pairings of great jazz musicians. Some of these pairings you know, some may be less familiar. A duo in the latter category was West Coast alto saxophonist Art Pepper and New York tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh. On the recordings by these two players, you get two artists who personified a cooler, drier sound on the reed instrument. By cooler and drier, I mean smooth, no vibrato, relaxed and behind the ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Art Pepper
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Art Pepper's birthday today!
Alto Saxophonist Art Pepper, a native of Gardena California, played in the overtly emotional manner that came to define the West Coast style. His solo approach was always passionate, from early recordings made with Stan Kenton's orchestra during his years with the band (1943 and 1946-52) and in jam sessions on LA’s Central Avenue. Records and club work with Shorty Rogers and his Giants beginning in 1951 provided more room for ...
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'Unreleased Art Pepper Volume Eleven: Atlanta' To Be Released Feb. 19 On Widow's Taste Records
Source:
Terri Hinte Publicity
On a 1980 tour that he undertook with his working quartet, Art Pepper spent the evening of May 17 electrifying the audience at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta. The tour was a quickie affair—his wife and manager, Laurie, barely even noted it on her calendar. She did roll tape, however, and for her efforts, posterity can enjoy his thrilling performance with the band on the double-disc Unreleased Art Pepper Volume Eleven: Atlanta, set for a February 19 release on ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Art Pepper
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Art Pepper's birthday today!
Alto Saxophonist Art Pepper, a native of Gardena California, played in the overtly emotional manner that came to define the West Coast style. His solo approach was always passionate, from early recordings made with Stan Kenton's orchestra during his years with the band (1943 and 1946-52) and in jam sessions on LA’s Central Avenue. Records and club work with Shorty Rogers and his Giants beginning in 1951 provided more room for ...
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Harrison Goldberg
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Mirko Fait
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Blaise Siwula
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Jim Butler
saxophone
Reto Anneler
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Andy Page
guitar, electric.jpg)
Tom Bekeny
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Halley Shoenberg
clarinet
Roz Harding
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Dom Franks
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Mick Foster
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Charlotte Mclean
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Roz
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Yiannis Papanastasiou
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The Modern Beat Combo
band / ensemble / orchestra
Chris Coluzzi
drumsPhotos
Music
Make a List (Make a Wish)
From: Unreleased Art: Vol. 3 CroydenBy Art Pepper
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Art Pepper
Instrument: Saxophone, alto
Born: September 1, 1925
Died: June 15, 1982
