AOW Week - December 11

[Leeway]

Larry Kart, I agree that Benny Carter was another identifiable influence on Art.  Carter himself often gets overlooked in discussions of tenor (and trumpet too) players.

Maybe that's cuz he played alto?

yeah, my bad, another brain fart. Funny too because I just listened to Carter's "Jazz Giant" and "Cosmopolite," posted about them over in the vinyl thread, and talked about his ALTO playing . Don't know where the tenor thing snuck in

[Leeway]

Allan, thanks for the interesting insights and account of your meeting with Art.

I wanted to add a note about drug addiction. I used to think I knew about in the way I knew about baseball, or the history of World War II, or any other general topic, that is, as another subject of historical or social or academic interest, but recently I've come to know about it more intimately. The effects of addiction, especially heroin addiction, are profound --psychologically, emotionally and physically. It's true that heroin addicts prety much stop maturing at the time their addicition forms, so Art's adolescent mind-set is not surprising. If you really dig into the pathology of heroin addicition, and speak with drug addicts (and I know some of you have done so) it reveals another world that's hard for those outside the drug scene to fathom. Most if not all heroin addicts suffer from paranoia, depression, low self-esteem, deteriorated physical condition, powerful addictive impulses and a host of other ills that result from the drug's effects on teh central nervous system and brain. I think it was something of a miracle that Art managed to play as well as he did earlier in his career, and, more so, was able to make his comeback at all, as debilitated as he was through most of his life. I think his music put things together in a way that he could not do in his everyday life.

I do believe Art was self-conscious when he returned to jazz after his last prison term and Synanon; only natural for anyone returning to a field of work where they once ecxelled but with which they had been out of touch. Especially as so many changes had occurred, including the advent of fusion, free and pos-bop jazz. As I noted, he went through a Coltrane period. But in the end, I think that the playing itsel was never self-conscious, especially as he got further into the second stage of his career. I think he was afraid of his distinctiveness (as something that would show he wasn't quit "with it" but later came to embrace it as the gift it was, a unique musical style or voice.

I think Art is still somewhat outside the main currents of jazz history and contemporary commentary, although he has a lot of loyal fans. One reason might be that Art hearkens back to the swing era, rather than a herald of the post-bop period. His concerns were for individuality of style; the purity, clarity and simplicity (which is of course the hardest form of complexity to achieve) of tone and expression; the emphasis on "swing;" and honesty of expression.

[marcoliv]

i don't have Straight Life yet but i was listening "The Trip" this afternoon reading all those interesting comments about Pepper and it was a great audition

Marcus

[Leeway]

i don't have Straight Life yet but i was listening "The Trip" this afternoon reading all those interesting comments about Pepper and it was a great audition

Marcus

We aim to please

I have "The Trip" in a Japanese k2 issue, sounds great, and I really like the album, especially the title cut, and "The Summer Knows."

[marcoliv]

both takes of the title cut are nice and Sweet Love Of Mine from Woody Shaw is fantastic

MCO

[danasgoodstuff]

Dudes, you almost ruined this for me and I used to really dig it... B-)

[SNWOLF]

A fairly belated response, but I'm new here.

I initially borrowed Art Pepper from the library, on a whim. I saw the title of the album, saw the photos on the back, and thought: except for the drummer, they look like a bunch of washed up nerdy white guys. So, in a move of pointless, contrarian perversity, I thought I'd get it out.

The CD was Blues for the Fisherman, and I've never looked back. Up until then the only saxophonic jazz for me was the cathartic monumentalism of John Coltrane, the paint-stripper intensity of Jackie McLean, the blistering profundity of Charlie Parker, the avuncular, sardonic generosity of Sonny Rollins, and the avian tessellations of Eric Dolphy.

Art Pepper was of an entirely different order. He was intensely melodic, when I was at a youthful, self-consciously hip age when anything remotely melodic was rejected as maudlin and corny. His music had so much beauty and pain and invention and enormous depth. Deep blues and a kind of resolute, distilled, tragic drama. I hadn't, and haven't, heard such beauty in a saxophone player.

Since then I've endeavoured to get everything he's done, both official and unofficial. The thing that never fails to amaze me is how endlessly inventive he is - there's this lyric potency that just never seems to run dry. Very, very occasionly his playing seems to be a bit perfunctory, his reed a bit woolly. But we're talking a constancy of genius here that, in my opinion, surpasses Bird, who frequently degenerates into licks and cliches - his own patented brand, certainly, but glib nonetheless. And I LOVE Bird.

Straight Life is my favourite record. Not just Art's, but of any jazz artist. Although if the track Lost Life, from his first comeback record Living Legend, was released as a single track CD, I'd get it.

There's an emotional and thematic continuity to Straight Life that maintains an evocative atmosphere much like Kind of Blue. The feeling of the record is different, but it has that same langorous, insular feel that invokes a poignant, hermetic clarity.

I like this album not just for Art, but because the whole band is so beautifully sympatico. Red Mitchell on bass: what a SOULFUL bass tone - deep, dark, resonant. Tommy Flanagan - some of the most lyrical playing he's ever put on record - you can HEAR Art and Tommy listening, but in an entirely unforced, spontaneous, natural way. And Billy Higgins - the perfect drummer, next to Carl Burnett for Art Pepper. A MELODIC, subtle, empathic drummer. All these guys are so in tune with each other, playing so well, with so much heart, so much creative conviction. This album, for me, is the ultimate desert island disc. I'm always transported to a higher state of awareness when I listen to it.

Thankyou Art Pepper! And a big, BIG thanks to Laurie Pepper, who loved him, and who kept him reasonably together so he could make his greatest contributions towards the end of an often tortured existence.