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About Art Pepper
The Golden Era of Art Pepper on Contemporary Records (1957-1960)
by C. Michael Bailey
The arc of alto saxophonist Art Pepper's early career is one of the most dramatic narratives in jazz history--a relentless tug-of-war between transcendent musical genius and the devastating grip of heroin addiction. Between 1957 and 1960, Pepper recorded a sequence of five albums for Lester Koenig's Contemporary Records that redefined the jazz capabilities of the alto saxophone and the genre “West Coast Jazz." Operating within the sunny confines of Los Angeles, Pepper was fighting a dark, private war against narcotics, ...
Continue ReadingArt Pepper: Everything Happens to Me 1959 - Live at the Cellar
by Jack Kenny
The work of great artists is often discussed in terms of distinct periods--Picasso had his Blue Period, Rembrandt his Leiden Period. An album like this invites a similar framework for Art Pepper: the post-Stan Kenton era, the Renaissance Years, the Final Period. The performances captured here belong to a pivotal moment in Pepper's career. He had already recorded several landmark albums for Contemporary Records: Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (1957), Modern Art (1957), and Art Pepper + ...
Continue ReadingCelebrating 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 ...
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