Search - Art Pepper :: Smack Up

Middle Art

Jazzcat | Genoa, Italy Italy | 01/17/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album is a very important example of the ending part of the first section of Art's career. I own all his later box set (Galaxy, Village Vanguard, Hollywood all stars) and a lot of his earlier albums. I think this one stands clearly among the two periods even if it has been recorded at the end of the first. He was no more the impressive shining alto player who recorded Plus Eleven, Rhythmn section or Surf ride some time earlier and the one who won placed second behind Charlie Parker in a 1951 "Down beat" polls (Smack up is from 1960). Here he played already different for what I can hear and compare. Slower, with a different sound. He had a slightly different use of space and ideas. You can hear they were not in the fifties no more. you can hear that the change of decade has changed the view of things for what I am concerned. Even if its not a blue note album absolutly not that kind of sixties sound here. It is still a west coast record from Art, but even if the program is still "fifties", blues and originals but in "that fifties vein" something had already changed. It's there, in the air, you can breathe that. It is a nice album, with very strong soloing from the guys and from the always splendid Art of course. It's a transition album in a sense. When we were able to hear Pepper again he changed again and was ready for his definitive come back and affirmation in the seventies which was a splendid period for him artistically. Even if I am totally in love with his albums from the full fifties. Sonically it is a very well recorded album, unfortunatly the cover its not one of "those" fantastic covers from the fifties."

Overshadowed by Intensity

Matthew Watters | Vietnam | 06/08/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Any other musician would kill to have made this record, but Smack Up always pales a bit for me because it was recorded back-to-back with the monumental Intensity, Pepper's last record before going into a six-year lock-down at San Quentin. It's hard to tell why this one doesn't quite measure up. Jack Sheldon does great work in the vein of his stint with the Curtis Counce Group, but, while Pepper is all conflicted feelings boiling under the surface, Sheldon is just on the sunny side. Drummer Frank Butler (like Pepper, one of my favourite musicians, bar none) is his usually fantastic self on both records. So maybe it's the material, which here -- with the exception of Pepper's own 5/4 "Cuevos de Mario" -- is a bunch of tunes by other saxophonists (not coincidentally licensed to Contemporary, shame on you, Lester Koenig), while on Intensity, Pepper gets to really dig into the chords of some familiar standards, undistracted by fellow soloists, and comes up with one of his most emotionally resonant records. Don't get me wrong: Smack Up is a great album. It's fun and it swings like mad and you can't have my copy. But it lacks .... Intensity."

Consistently high standard

Philip | Sydney, Australia | 07/27/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Art is again in excellent form with "Smack Up" which was one of the last records of his first classic period. The tracks are consistently of a high standard with excellent recording quality. Highlights for me are "How Can You Lose" and "Maybe Next Year". Well worth buying."