Search - Art Pepper :: Intimate Art Pepper

Pepper on clarinet and solo sax

Matthew James Black | West Bloomfield, MI United States | 07/12/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The music on this album dates from the late 1970s when Art Pepper made some very nice recordings for the Artists House label. My favorite was "So In Love" which I originally bought on LP, and then searched for in vain on CD until Analogue Productions reissued it, along with "New York Album" and "The Intimate Art Pepper." "So In Love" might be Art Pepper at his best, and "New York Album" is pretty good. "The Intimate Art Pepper" is the weakest of the three albums for me because I am not fond of the clarinet and solo sax pieces. The use of clarinet on "Anthropology" was a turn-off. However, the quartet recordings, with Pepper on sax, of 'Body and Soul,' and 'Landscape' are great, and 'Desafinado' makes the album mandatory listening -- Art Pepper being perhaps the only sax player who could play a tune "owned" by Stan Getz and not suffer in comparison. I guess even the solo 'You Go To My Head' works well enough. It's that clarinet I can't stand. Art Pepper fans will want all three of the releases by Analogue Productions, and chance being weired-out by Pepper on clarinet"