East Coast Meets West Coast
Steven J. Bissell | Denver, CO USA | 05/08/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Art Pepper was one of the so-called "West Coast" or "California" sax players; think Paul Desmond meets John Coltrane. In 1957 he was called by Lester Koenig and asked if he wanted to cut an album with Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. These guys, the greatest side-men from the "East Coast" school, had been playing, at that time, with Miles Davis. Pepper was, as always, in hock to feed his heroin habit and didn't have a complete sax in his apartment. He pieced together an alto from spare parts and made it over to the Los Angeles studio of Contemporary Records. What followed in the next five hours was magic. During the recording session two tunes, "Waltz Me Blues," and "Red Pepper Blues" were actually composed by Chambers and Pepper and Garland and Pepper respectedly. Art Pepper was the equal of the great alto players of that era. Like many Jazz musicans his addiction to heroin got in the way of his playing. One of the tunes on this disc, "Straight Life," composed by Pepper, is also the title of his highly depressing auto-biography. This disc is in all ways a wonderful musical occasion. If you are at all a fan of this type Jazz, you need to own this disc. The CD comes in two versions; one is a standard transfer of the LP, the other is coded in 20-bit analog and has a bonus track of "The Man I Love." Either one is well worth having."