Art Pepper - Modern Jazz Classics

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Get it while you can! 24 Aug 2007

If ever there were a jazz musician who took the stereotype of the hard-living, rebellious hipster to its ultimate extension, it was Art Pepper. In and out of jail and mental asylums over the course of his career, his brand of fluid, Bird-inspired alto playing remains one of those great what-if's in the history of jazz music. Albums such as "Meets the Rhythm Section" have acquired cult status owing to the myths which have grown up about Pepper coming out of jail and the next day going straight into the recording studio to jam with Miles Davis' own rhythm section. Whatever the truth of these stories, it remains the fact that Pepper possessed a fantastic alto sound, and his gift for deeply musical improvisation remains rarely equalled.

This disc is unique in his output, in that it teams Pepper with a full big band (which itself contains many of the great session men of the day (Mel Lewis appears on drums, Pete Candoli on trumpet and Herb Geller leads the sax section) to perform swinging arrangements of some great bop numbers. In some ways the disc was already anachronistic at the time of its recording in 1959: Bop had moved on and big, closely scored ensembles were no longer breaking new ground in jazz. However, the selection of tracks, teamed to enjoyable arrangements, makes this a disc that bears many listenings.

Perhaps its greatest attraction is that it features Pepper not only playing alto, but also tenor sax and clarinet. His tenor sound is not as smooth as his alto, but it's fascinating to hear a man adapt his playing to the demands of a new instrument.

This disc is difficult to get hold of (I found my copy lurking at the back of a second hand record store), and it's a shame that it should be out of the catalogues, so my recommendation is: get yourself a copy, and enjoy something very different from Art Pepper.