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Devoted fans of alto saxophonist Art Pepper share a fascination with
Chet Baker fans. They find Pepper's excesses, so flatly confessed in his autobiography,
Straight Life, great fodder for intense listening--which they are. Pepper had a rare talent for playing as if his horn were a lens on his torment. He played cushioned, cool melodies in the California jazz heyday and then went off to prison and hardscrabble years as an infamous heroin addict. By the time he performed the music on this massive nine-CD set, Pepper had made several comebacks, the latest of which was heroic--if fueled by chemicals and a furious need to prove himself during the Vanguard gigs caught here uninterrupted. The music bristles, whether in the pretty anguish of a solo-sax "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" or the numerous mad-charging bop heads Pepper tackles as if they were his last meals. He makes an ass of himself with some of the between-song banter, but it's all part of the big picture. For all the thorns and warts and complications, that picture shows unabated, undiluted, and unquenchable musical chops to burn here. The liner essay tells the whole sordid tale of Pepper gone from prison to a halfway house to a late-1970s rebound that urged some of his best music. If this lavish box, with its repetitions of tunes (all the takes, however, differ radically) is too much, try the individual volumes.
--Andrew Bartlett
Product Description
20bit digital K2 mastering.
