Straight Life - Art Pepper [109]
It came out beautiful. My sound was great. The rhythm was great. And I remember in the reviews, by people like Leonard Feather, Martin Williams, they said, "The way Art plays the melody is wonderful. He's so creative. He makes it sound even better than the actual tune." Well, what I'm doing, I don't know the melody so I'm playing as close to it as I can get, and that's the creativity part. It does sound good because I play it with a jazz feeling, and it's like a jazz solo, but I'm really trying to play what I recollect of the song.
Les suggested we try a ballad for the next side, so Paul Chambers said, "You know what would be a nice tune for alto and the way you play? 'Imagination.' Do you know that?" I "aid, "Yeah, I've heard that. Bah dah dah dahhhh dah... " Red said, "That's A flat." I said, "Well, I was just goofing around." We ran through the melody and the bridge and then I said, "What should we do at the ending?" Red said, "Just do a little tag kind of thing. Just make it a free kind of thing." I played the melody and then I blew; Red played; Paul played; I came in and just followed along, a little series of chords; and then they stopped and I played a little ad lib kind of thing and we went into the ending. It was just fantastic. "Imagination" on Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section. It sounded as if we'd been rehearsing for months.
That's the way the whole thing went. We played a lot of things I'd liked but never done. And I really moved them, you know. And that's something. They'd been playing with Miles! And me being white! They were all real friendly and said it was beautiful, and they dug the way I played. Diane looked at me, like, "Would I forgive her?" and "Wasn't I happy?" And I was so relieved it was over I told her, "Everything's cool." So that was the session, and when it came out the people really liked it.
ART PEPPER
ART PEPPER MEETS THE RHYTHM SECTION-Contemporary C 3532: You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To; Red Pepper Blues; Imagination; Waltz Me Blues; Straight Life; Jazz Me Blues; Tin Tin Deo; Star Eyes; Birks' Works.
Personnel: Pepper, alto; Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.
Rating: * * * * *
At time of writing, this album is exactly one year in release. Why it has not been reviewed until now is quite unfathomable, for it certainly was one of the best jazz albums of last year and probably Pepper's most mature recording to date. The session was held Jan. 19, 1957, when Lester Koenig availed himself of the Miles Davis rhythm section, then in Hollywood with the trumpeter to play a local night club.
The altoist and rhythm section are indeed well met in this balanced set of eight tunes ranging from a purely played Imagination to some intriguing three-quarter jazz in Waltz Me. The solos of all con cerned are of consistent interest, with Pepper at times reaching heights he's seldom attained even under most congenial conditions in a club. In Red Pepper, a down-homey blues, Art's Lester Young-like phrasing in his opening chorus clearly shows where the roots lie.
As soloist and comper, Garland is authoritative and original. He can be alternately strong and delicate, sparely laconic, and ripplingly virtuosic. The bass-drums team here is peerless, with Chambers getting off some well-conceived pizzicato and arco solos. Jones' brush chorus in Waltz Me bears endless replaying for its taste and humor.
This memorable meeting deserves a favored place in anybody's collection. (J.A.T.) down beat, June 12, 1958. Copyright 1958 by down beat. Reprinted by special permission.
(John Koenig) My father always told me Art was the best alto player in town. He responded to Art early. And he told him early on, "Look, if you respect