Jazz Articles about Art Pepper

About Art Pepper

Album Review

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 ...

Bailey's Bundles

Late-Period Art Pepper Box Sets

by C. Michael Bailey
March 15, 2024

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 ...

Album Review

Art Pepper: Smack Up

Read "Smack Up" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
February 7, 2024

There are certain players and recordings that make an indelible first impression. The circumstances usually involve a degree of ignorance: Who is that? What is he (or she) doing? How did this recording escape notice when so many others did not? A very personal reaction to Art Pepper. Urgency. Intensity. Listen to me. Before the name, there was the sound and the piercing tone that can only come out of some dark emotional depth. A listener did not ...

Multiple Reviews

Contemporary Records 70th: Art Pepper and Benny Carter

by C. Andrew Hovan
April 4, 2023

In the pantheon of great jazz record labels, the name Contemporary Records looms large among fans and collectors alike. Akin to their east coast competitor, Blue Note Records, Contemporary was well known for its refined presentations. From the characteristic covers and well-written liner notes to the quality pressings, Lester Koenig's labor of love was home to some of the best musicians on the west coast. In addition, thanks to the engineering skills of Ray DuNann and Howard Holzer, the recorded ...

Album Review

Art Pepper: Unreleased Art Pepper: Atlanta 1980

Read "Unreleased Art Pepper: Atlanta 1980" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
March 25, 2021

La serie delle performance inedite di Art Pepper giunge all'11° capitolo e si aggiunge alle altre registrazioni in studio o live (molte dell'etichetta Galaxy), che documentano la fase finale della sua carriera. Anche quest'album doppio è stato curato dalla vedova Laurie che ebbe il merito di sostenere la fragile personalità del marito, consentendogli di esprimere e documentare la sua maiuscola statura artistica. Figlio non voluto di due alcolizzati, la vita di Art Pepper era stata devastata da ...

Album Review

Art Pepper: Unreleased Art Pepper Volume Eleven: Atlanta

Read "Unreleased Art Pepper Volume Eleven: Atlanta" reviewed by Peter J. Hoetjes

by Peter J. Hoetjes
February 17, 2021

Laurie Pepper expands upon the legend of her late husband, Art Pepper, with the release of Atlanta. The eleventh edition in her Widow's Taste series of uncovered treasures finds the alto saxophonist at an unspecified jazz club in Atlanta, Georgia, during the spring of 1980. Firmly planted in his comeback era, Pepper found comfort and familiarity in the use of two very different pianists. Although he preferred George Cables, whom he tagged with the moniker “Mr. Beautiful," he was occasionally ...

Bailey's Bundles

Notable and Nearly Missed 2020

by C. Michael Bailey
January 28, 2021

The strange year that was 2020 yielded, reluctantly, re-issued and previously unissued recordings from across the spectrum of music and ain't it fine to have such to consider. The value of such recordings lay in their function in pointing to the musical future we presently inhabit. They fill in the blank spaces between then and now. Art Pepper Atlanta: Unreleased Art Pepper Volume Eleven Widow's Taste 2020 Okay, Okay! The first release ...