Art Pepper Opinions Needed

[tranemonk]

okay so I bought the Art Pepper Select and was so impressed that I had to get more... I then bought the Hollywood All-Star Sessions... Very nice not as good as the Select IMHO but nice...

So I'm debating (with the sale at True Blue) about the Art Pepper Village Vangard set... Can someone compare this with the above 2 boxes????

Anybody found any cheaper prices that trueblue's $120.. bestprices.com had it for $98 but it's not in stock...

thanks

[AfricaBrass]

I love what I've heard from the Village Vanguard cds, but have you already purchased his late 50's, early 60's Contemporary recordings that are out as OJC's. If you like the Aladdin sessions, I think this would be the next step.

I love Art Pepper!

:rsmile:

[Nate Dorward]

Basically, get the entire run of stuff for Contemporary in the 1950s/1960s, & Living Legend. & Larry Kart sez that the one from the 1950s called simply Art Pepper Quartet is a classic too though I've yet to pick it up.

I've never liked the post-comeback Pepper nearly as much as the stuff up to 1960, but there are a lot of people who will passionately disagree.

[Quincy]

You can get it from alldirect.com for $104.94 and that includes shipping. Oh, and it is in stock too. Phew!

I don't have enough Art Pepper but I too am looking for more. For what it's worth (& not much ) I have a few Contemporaries and 1 volume of the Vanguards and love both eras. The Select is next on my list.

[kh1958]

The 50's sides are great and you can't go wrong with his Contemporary albums (Meets the Rhythm Section, for example).

However, I prefer his late recordings. Rather than get a narrowly focused box set, I would recommend that you sample a few of the Galaxys (for example, Art Pepper Today, Landscape, or Winter Moon).

[Claude]

I've heard allmost all of Art Pepper's albums. My favourite recordings are the Contemporary and Pacific Jazz sessions.

The Village Vanguard box is very good, but it would not be a first choice if you don't have any of the Contemporary albums.

[ralphie_boy]

Check out The Trip while you're at it. It's a great session.

[Dave James]

I'm throwing in with Nate on this one. To me, the pre-"return of" material is clearly superior to the later stuff. Yes...Winter Moon is an interesting set. Pepper in an entirely different light. If I remember correctly, I think he even has a go at the clarinet on this one. Pretty laid back, but pretty nice. And, as others have already said, "Meets the Rhytym Section." A true classic. Be sure you get the K-2 remaster of that one. His Pacific Jazz recordings are also worth seeking out.

I have the Vanguard Box. Obviously live, very well recorded, but perhaps a little too frenetic for my tastes, although there's some nice stuff on it too. I just don't seem to pull that one off the shelf very often.

If you really want to get inside Pepper, read his autobiography, "Straight Life." That one'll curl up your toes. Another book to check out is "The Art Pepper Companion" by Todd Selbert, an anthology of essays and critical assessments of Pepper's career and recordings.

Up over and out.

[DrJ]

Hey, don't forget the stuff he did on Discovery, I think mostly or all reissued on Savoy. I have a nice 2 CD set of stuff from those sessions put out in Japan called COMPLETE SURF RIDE SESSIONS:

Complete Surf Ride

Lots of alternate takes, which may or may not float your boat, but to me when you have an improviser like Pepper they're well worth it. Worth tracking down.

I waver back and forth about whether I prefer earlier or later period Pepper, but lately the answer has been "earlier."

[AfricaBrass]

Check out The Trip while you're at it. It's a great session.

I enjoy that session and his Living Legend album from '75 a lot.

I think for now, Tranemonk should try to find sessions recorded before Pepper began his long incarceration in the 60's. That's how I started with AP, but eventually I got into his later stuff and really appreciated it for what it was.

[tranemonk]

cool...

thanks for the input.... I think I will check out some of the 50's cd... A lot cheaper than the box set...

[Nate Dorward]

Yes...Winter Moon is an interesting set. Pepper in an entirely different light. If I remember correctly, I think he even has a go at the clarinet on this one.

Actually Pepper played clarinet on occasion throughout his career--there's a classic clarinet version of "Anthropology" on the +10 sessions with Paich.

I should mention that some of his sideman work is great too--check out Mel Torme's Swings Shubert Alley for instance.

[Soulstation1]

you should check out the art pepper selection at e-music.com

ss1

[couw]

the Contemporary album "Gettin' Together" was my introduction to Pepper. It served me well.

The Vanguard Box has Pepper breathing Coltrane. Art was fascinated by the things happening in the world of jazz as reinvented by Coltrane a decade earlier. For better or for worse, Pepper went there himself and went berserk on the side. The Vanguard box is a testimony to that. Maybe you should first try a single disk (I'd recommend the Friday Night) and see if you want 9 crammed to crease CDs worth of that. He mellowed out after all this as your Hollywood box shows. The Hollywood box somehow often fails to grab me, although I think the music is fantastic. There is a distance between the instruments that makes it all sound a bit clinical. I need to give it all a spin again.

[clandy44]

Personally, I prefer the Pepper of the 1950s, but that's because I loved that Cali sound. That said, I have a lot of his work in the 60s and 70s and always felt he did not get his "just desserts." Incidentally, as usual, the Mosaic Select sound and song selection blow away much of his other recorded discography to my ears even though he did a lot of work on Contemporary, a well-recorded line. I feel the same way about Dexter-I have much of his work but the Mosaic Select just sounds a 1,000 percent better.

Edited April 9, 2005 by clandy44

[Jazz Kat]

Pepper's live a Dantes volumes are pretty good. I think Vol. 2 has two songs on it that last 20 minutes each.

The highlight is, the drummer for that engagement and on the cd, is nick ceroli, the drummer for the Tijuana Brass (herb alpert) at the time, and Art Pepper introduces him, "A very very successful drummer! Mr. Money himself! (audience laughs), mr Nick Ceroli." Then two seconds later, ceroli says, "I Ain't got no money at all!" And Art laughs.

[GA Russell]

I like his 50s work the best, especially his work with Shorty Rogers.

Michael Cuscuna once recommended to me his album with Chet Baker called The Route, which is now OOP, but which you can probably get used.

[montg]

I've been listening a lot lately to 'Smack up" from 1960...Jack Sheldon is also on the front line and the K2 version sounds mighty good. A classic session in my book.

[marcello]

Pepper's live a Dantes volumes are pretty good. I think Vol. 2 has two songs on it that last 20 minutes each.

That is the one with my homeboy, Joe Romano, playing tenor with Pepper.

Donte's not Dante's.

[marcello]

This one with Pepper and Romano:

[Jazz Kat]

Dig that Tijuana Brass drummer!

[AmirBagachelles]

Get the Contemporary titles. (Amazing audio documents as well.) And I love The Trip as well. And read his book. He is definitely one of the all-timers. I don't know the live comeback recordings, but I look forward to that someday when I have the time and money. I am sure it is astounding as well. High consistency is one of his legacies.

[J.A.W.]

Another vote for the late 1950s/1960s Contemporary albums: Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (1957), Art Pepper + Eleven: Modern Jazz Classics (1959), Gettin' Together! (1960), Intensity (1960) and Smack Up (1960), the Japanese release Art Pepper with Warne Marsh (1956), plus the Vanguard set - I agree with couw's assessment of Pepper's playing during the Vanguard dates.