post-return Pepper played great when he just played. But his attempt to be "modern" was just little pointless asides, because, like a lot of others from his musical generation, he did not really "get" the concept of the kind of poly-tonality Trane was getting at. For Pepper these gestures were like little, blind interruptions, understandable psychic expressions, perhaps, but never focused enough to get him where he wanted to go. But when I heard him he just played, digged more deeply into the kind of music he knew, and he was brilliant. And the Vanguard stuff is just strangely torturous, really, to my ears, narcissistic in its self focus.
just my opinion.