How Tall Was Art Pepper?

[sgcim]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

I actually like Pass on his early records on World Pacific Jazz Pacific World Jazzjazz. Something happened though, by the time he got to Pablo, all the good was gone, at least for me.

I went to school with a guy who was a student of his. He claimed it was the aftereffect of all the smack, but I was like, no, not unless he kept using after he allegedly cleaned up. Something else besides that. He did the WPJPBJ thing for how long, 7-8 years? Shit was all good there. But then...

 

I listened to all his Pacific Jazz stuff, and he still had the same swing based rhythmic conception. Jimmy Raney made the comment on Pass that, "He sounds like Charlie Parker, all straightened out".

Life on the road, and all the booze and drugs involved, could f-ck up anybody. As Casey Stengel once said, "I've seen the road make bums out of even good men".

Look at what it did to Tal Farlow. If you compare his 50s stuff to the stuff he did in the 70s and afterward (although Larry claimed he saw him on a really good day), it sounds like two different players. The same thing with Lee Konitz. He told a friend of mine that he was never the same after his experience on the road with Kenton.

It boils down to an individual's nervous system. That type of life has no effect on some people; with others, it really messes them up.

As far as Pass is concerned, he once told an audience in the 80s, "Where the hell were you people in the 50s when I could really play?" but i don't think junk messed with his technical ability; he was probably referring to something else.

[Gheorghe]

9 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Just read this review of Ella Fitzgerald/Joe Pass "Take Love Easy" (Pablo 2310702) the other day:

... Ella Fitzgerald accompanied by a sole musician, guitarist Joe Pass. And this accompaniment has ruined the record for me. Joe Pass plays with such flabbiness and langour that borders on a state of decay and does not feed the great singer even one single atom of swing. "Swing" may not be the keyword here because obviously swing was not the aim here. Yet Ella almost always swings her ballads, even at very slow tempos. Here the music of Joe Pass is so very emollient that Ella just was unable to give her best. The music makes you feel like you're stuck in a club with all the lights dimmed at 4 or 5 in the morning at the moment when most of the customers, well tired, start dozing off ... To have her accompanied by a sole guitarist, il would have needed a George Benson or Bill Harris ...

I am no Pass expert at all because for all his chops he somehow has never grabbed me they way other guitarists with boundless technique and fluency (like Tal Farlow) have. Just not enough "bite" for me (at least in what I did hear of him).

Same here !

I saw Ella live at Wiesen 1983 and I think the Group was her with Tommy Flanagan, Keter Betts, Joe Pass and Bobby Durham, all of them Pablo Artists ,  a very very fine concert, but at one Point Ella announced she will do some duo with Joe Pass and I think this was the only part of the set, which bored me a Little. 

Like in your case he never really grabbed me, I Always listened much to Wes Montgomery (before he made those records with strings), to Kenny Burrell and Grant Green if it´s About acoustic jazz. Larry Coryell  and Mike Stern for later developements. 

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

On 7/27/2019 at 10:02 AM, AllenLowe said:

I did spend a weird day with him, but mostly we drove around looking for drugs. But I do recall he was about my size, which is, as Larry says, between 5'7 and 5'8.

sounds like it could be a movie!  good god damn, drivin around the top saxophonist in jazz, fuckin-a

[Dan Gould]

8 minutes ago, chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez said:

sounds like it could be a movie!  good god damn, drivin around the top saxophonist in jazz, fuckin-a

Yeah it would be nice to know what Pepper thought of the experience.

[JSngry]

Yeah, the looking for drugs part is not interesting. I mean, hell, everybody looks, that's hardly a story. I want to know if they found what they were looking for, and what happened after they did, if they did.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

also i want to know if they pounded any food

[AllenLowe]

it was a very nice day; we talked about a lot of things, about jazz, Shelly Manne, Hampton Hawes, Stan Kenton, Dave Schildkraut. From time to time we would stop at an apartment building, he would run in, and come out fairly quickly. Finally he seemed ready and I took him back the hotel. We talked a little more, he gave me some record albums, thanked me for taking him around, and invited me for that night (The Jazz Workshop, I think). He played brilliantly that night (better, really, than on most recordings of the time); he even played a clarinet that someone handed him. End of night we shook hands, said goodbye. Last time I ever saw him. I really liked the guy, he was smart and funny; just not the most....settled or mature person I ever met.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

sounds like an incredible experience

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

did you eat food too