"Art Pepper-Marty Paich Inc." - Alun Morgan [From the Archives]

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Alun Morgan’s essay Art Pepper-Marty Paich Inc., originally appeared in the November 1960 issue of the Jazz Monthly magazine and was reprinted by permission in Todd Selbert, editor, The Art Pepper Companion, Writings on a Jazz Original [New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000].

Held in the highest esteem by the British Jazz community, Alun was a gentle and genteel person with many significant accomplishments as a Jazz writer and critic during his long career. The following article reveals delightful insights about Art, Marty and the nature of their working relationship and some startlingly revelations about Art’s preferences, not the least of which was his adulation of John Coltrane’s style of playing.

In 1960, Coltrane was not the legendary figure he would become later in the decade after the formation of his classic quartet with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. He was criticized rather than revered by the majority of Jazz fans and Jazz critics and a relatively small number in the Jazz world held the view of his playing which Art expresses in very appreciative terms.

Sadly, Jazz fans would have to wait 15 years for Coltrane’s influence to manifest itself in Art’s playing as he would spend those years in prison.

Alun certainly doesn’t pull any punches in his appraisal of Art’s playing:

“For some years I have looked on Art Pepper as the greatest solo player in jazz since Charlie Parker and … Art Pepper + Eleven, which I cannot recommend too highly, merely reinforces that opinion.”

[Based in the UK, Alun used English spelling.]

“In the spring of 1956 Marty Paich came to London as accompanist to Dorothy Dandridge. Raymond Horricks and I were fortunate enough to spend some time with Marty and this was my first "live" contact with the currently popular West Coast jazz movement. Identifying terms are convenient but invariably misleading and a great deal of misconception has arisen through this glib method of pigeon-holing. "West Coast jazz" eventually rebounded on its creators and developed into a term of derision in certain circles although, strictly speaking, the description covered the music of such California-based jazzmen as Kid Ory, Dexter Gordon, Earl Hines, Teddy Buckner and Maxwell Davis as well as Lennie Niehaus, Shorty Rogers and Shelly Manne. 

A recession in jazz interest in the area during the late fifties has led to a reduction in the amount of work for men such as Bill Perkins, Niehaus, Russ Freeman, etc., but the stigma has remained. This bias is depressingly unfair, for it means that many collectors and critics have pre-judged new records bearing the "made in Los Angeles" tag. When this method of assessing value and importance is applied to the work of musicians such as Marty Paich, Art Pepper, Bill Perkins, Alvin Stoller, Charlie Mariano and Jack Sheldon it is time to call a halt so that a few critical blinkers might be removed.

Marty Paich, as I soon discovered, is a man with an acute awareness of tradition and a love of all that is good in jazz. He spoke to me with relish of his then recent engagement with Harry Edison and Buddy Rich and revealed an extensive knowledge of the first Basie band culled direct from Edison. 

"When the band left Kansas City for New York in 1936," he remarked, "the book, the entire set of parts, travelled in Harry's trumpet case." His eyes glowed with pleasure at the thought of an orchestra which achieved so much largely on the strength of its head arrangements. Our conversation turned to a big band of more recent vintage, the fine orchestra put together by Shorty Rogers for the "Cool and Crazy" album (HMV DLP1030, Victor LPM1350). 

Marty played piano on the two dates for the LP and had based the broad outline of his style on the orchestral keyboard work of the Count. "We used five trumpets," he said. "Four played the opening ensemble chorus first time round with Conrad Gozzo on lead. (You know, Gozzo's one of the greatest lead men of all time.) Then when we'd given the impression that that was our full power we repeated the passage but this time we brought in Maynard Ferguson doubling the lead an octave above. It was quite a sound." Art Pepper had been one of the featured soloists on the "Cool and Crazy" LP and gradually we found ourselves talking of Pepper who, at the time of our conversation, was serving a sentence for narcotic addiction. 

Pepper had long been a particular favourite of mine (the only Kenton records I ever bought have been the ones with solos by Art) and I was anxious to learn of his whereabouts. Marty spoke at length and with obvious warmth about the alto player, regretting his absence from the Los Angeles circle at a time when there was so much work for jazz musicians and bemoaning the circumstances which had ensnared this superb soloist. It became obvious that Paich's love for Pepper's music was enormous.

Some months after Marty returned home I was surprised and delighted to learn of Art Pepper's release and I guessed that Paich's reactions would be the same. Within weeks of his reappearance Art had recorded an LP with Marty (Tampa TP28, London LZ-U14040) and it seemed that the Old Firm was back in business. Since that date Paich has worked and recorded with Pepper on a number of occasions but the surprising truth of the matter is that Art has found difficulty in breaking into the circle of musicians commanding the studio jobs and jazz club engagements. 

Down Beat dated April 14, 1960, carried a revealing feature on Pepper (the author was uncredited) which contained the information that at the beginning of 1959 Art was selling piano-accordions, complete with lessons on the instrument, to make a living. Less than three years before it seemed that Pepper was destined for a triumphant re-entry into the jazz world which had, in 1949, 1951, 1952, 1953 and 1954, placed him amongst the leading three or four alto saxists in referendums [polls] organised by Metronome magazine. 

A relatively brief spell of recording activity during 1957 and the latter half of 1956 left him high and dry. Warding off the narcotic peddlers who thought he might be easy meat having once experienced this deadly and easy way of nullifying frustrations, hardly helped matters, and the accordion-selling job seemed the only way he could earn a living for Diane (his wife) and himself. "It's true I was pretty disinterested in music at that time," he told Down Beat, "But I began to put down the music rather than the circumstances. The guy who really made me want to play again was John Coltrane. The fact that he'd come up with an original style struck me strongly. In the past there was Pres, then Charlie Parker. Now there's Coltrane. He starts playing and just flows through the rhythm. And I like his sound. Many people object to his sound, they say it's too rough and hard. Not me. He plays an awful lot of notes but as beautifully as anyone ever played. The way he plays with a chord and with scales is really remarkable."

When his interest in music was rekindled by Coltrane, Pepper cast about for a job in which he could get back to the music he loved. Strangely enough the only offer seemed to come from a rock and roll unit playing at a club in San Fernando Valley. "This was an authentic rock and roll band," he insists. "Most of the guys were from Shreveport, Louisiana, and they didn't fool around with the music. I began to dig music again from working with them. Because they really felt it. The music swung." Pepper was not the first to discover the importance of the rhythm and blues group to the jazz musician. 

Most of the leading soloists of today have come up through the ranks of r. and b. bands, bands in which the beat is important and the projection of the solo voice above a strongly riffing background leads to a tone and volume control which can never be achieved through working only with small jazz groups. By the middle of 1959 Art was anxious to get back into jazz proper and he jumped at the chance to join Bud Shank's new quartet at the Drift Inn at Malibu for week-end engagements. Soon afterwards he was signed up as a full-time member of the Lighthouse club band along with Conte Candoli, Vince Guaraldi, Bob Cooper and drummer Nick Martinis. 

Yet a man of his stature should be in a position to command a higher salary and to reckon on a fairly steady supply of day jobs in radio and television studios. "The truth is," Art confessed to the Down Beat reporter, "Marty Paich is the only leader in town who has called me for record dates, and who still does whenever he records. Even if he has an arrangement, say, on a vocal album with all strings, he'll even write in an alto part for me to blow on." About Pepper, Marty replies, "There's no-one else I would rather write for because the minute he hears the background, he makes an immediate adjustment to the arrangement. Art never stops listening to what's happening in the background; in reverse, it's like a pianist working with a singer."

The finest collaborative work featuring Pepper and Paich is the album entitled "Art Pepper plus Eleven: Modern Jazz Classics" (Vogue LAC 12229, American Contemporary M3568) recorded at three sessions in March and May, 1959. Art and Marty chose twelve outstanding jazz compositions dating from the 1944-vintage 'Round about midnight to Sonny Rollins's 1954 Airegin by way of Move, Groovin' high, Opus de funk, Four brothers, Shaw 'nuff, Bernie's tune, Walkin' shoes, Anthropology, Walkin' and Donna Lee. 

Paich used a modified version of 'Dek-tette'-type instrumentation to support Pepper, the 'Dek-tette' being itself a development of the famous Miles Davis band. Marty was fortunate to have the services of Bob Enevoldsen, for this versatile musician was at home either on valve-trombone or tenor sax, thus giving the arranger the choice of five brass and three saxes or four brass and four reeds. Pepper played clarinet on one number (Anthropology), alto on seven, tenor on three, and both alto and tenor on one. An excellent transcription of the original Woody Herman sound was achieved on Four Brothers when Pepper played lead tenor in a sax section completed by Enevoldsen and Richie Kamuca, also on tenors, and Med Flory on baritone. 

Rarely in jazz can there have been more sympathy between arranger and soloist or a greater affinity of purpose. I must disagree wholeheartedly with the review of the record which appeared in this magazine for it contained the misleading statement, "in view of the lack of stimulating rapport between soloist and accompaniment here one feels that Art Pepper meets the rhythm section (Vogue-Contemporary LAC12066) remains this artist's best record." 

This is one of those cases (by no means rare in jazz criticism) when the reverse is actually the truth. Vogue LAC12066 features Pepper with Miles Davis's rhythm section (Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones); Art had never played with the rhythm section before and there are a number of occasions on the LP when the quartet seems to be heading in two directions at once. Philly Joe, for example, is such a strong individualist that there are few groups in which he can play his part to maximum effect; his trick of doubling the tempo for no apparent reason (it seems to take control of him like a nervous twitch) appears to surprise and annoy Pepper. Chambers's habit of playing a kind of running solo also runs counter to the ideas of the alto saxist who had previously enjoyed the superior class playing of Ben Tucker or Leroy Vinnegar in his rhythm sections. 

Most jazz enthusiasts (and surely all musicians) hearing Art Pepper plus eleven will sense at once the stimulating rapport between arranger and soloist, a truth which is borne out by the statements appearing in the Down Beat article. "I feel the situation between Art and myself is similar to that between Miles Davis and Gil Evans" stated Paich. "We understand each other. I've played with him long enough to understand his feelings. Because Art's usually recorded with a quartet or similar group, I tried to write for the Eleven album in a manner that would make him feel that he was playing with a small band." 

Marty expands the argument on the sleeve to the LP: "I wanted to give him a different kind of inspiration than he's been used to with just a quartet behind him. I wanted Art to feel the impact of the band, and I thought this setting would spur him to play differently than usual — though still freely within his natural style. And it did. Art and I have always thought very much alike. I couldn't have asked for a more compatible soloist." Pepper's agreement is implicit in his statement: "Seems like everything I've ever done with Marty came out good — from the first quartet we did on the Tampa label. He writes very interestingly — just listen to the latest album — and it always swings. That Eleven album is written with a lot of taste, and the voicing is excellent. Between him and me, it's a feeling . . . Like, some people make it together and some don't. We do." 

Paich's writing for the Eleven album is something of a high-spot in a consistently excellent arranging career. A knowledge of, and love for, the subject matter has meant that each number is not only treated with respect but with circumspection. On Groovin' high, for example, Marty has transcribed Parker's solo from the original Musicraft record and handed it to the saxes to play as a section; Jeru makes its appearance, in part, as an ensemble figure towards the end of Walkin’ shoes while the opening half chorus of Donna Lee captures the spirit and hope inherent in the music of Parker's quintet. 

The attention to detail not only in the writing but also in the playing means that Pepper has been given a series of springboards from which to launch himself into inspired solo passages, and the scoring of Groovin' high, Airegin and Anthropology in particular boosts Art up into the clouds. Always a lyrical, passionate player, Pepper is heard at his best on Groovin' high where his sense of occasion stands him in good stead. Stylistically he descends from an admixture of Parker, Lee Konitz and Benny Carter and the singing quality of his improvised lines would do credit to Carter or Lester Young. 

Alto remains his most effective instrument, the one on which he seems best able to communicate his thoughts, but his tenor playing in this album indicates that he could also become a major voice on the larger saxophone. His clarinet feature, Anthropology, is a revelation, for it is the first clarinet playing in the modern idiom I have heard which is warm-toned and free-swinging. "Art Pepper is probably one of the most dedicated musicians I know," maintains Paich. "He just lives for his horn." It is certainly true that he immerses himself in his music whenever he is called upon to solo. There is never a feeling of superficiality nor insincerity but always an impression of deep-seated emotion and a desire to get at the truth.

In recent months I have read full-page advertisements in American magazines calling attention to "soul" music which, if I have read the announcements correctly, is the prerogative of the Riverside and Prestige record companies. I am not sure of the exact meaning of "soul music" in this context but it seems to comprise a crude, insincere imitation of Negro gospel diluted with a generous helping of the vastly overrated Ray Charles. 

The result is more contrived than the most extreme examples of Illinois Jacquet's crowd-rousing screams. My conception of music which has heartfelt emotion or soul is the kind of jazz produced by trumpeter Joe Thomas or Art Pepper, for both these men play with a simple directness and poetic lyricism. Pepper can, and does, play the blues with more conviction than many of his so-called "soul" brothers and I would recommend in particular his Blues out from Score SLP4030, an extended performance on alto backed only by Ben Tucker's bass. 

Unfortunately the hippies of this world are not likely to accept Pepper at his true value for, not to put too fine a point on it, Art, in their eyes, is not only resident on the wrong coast but is of the wrong colour. This is one of the fundamental injustices which no amount of preaching will put to rights, nevertheless my aim in writing this brief appraisal of an outstanding record is an attempt to set things in their correct perspective.

Art Pepper plus eleven is a superb album in every way. Not only does it showcase one of the really important soloists of our times but it focuses attention on one of jazz's brightest arrangers. It also indicates that Jack Sheldon, who shares the solo space with Pepper, is potentially the best of the newer jazz trumpeters resident in California and that Mel Lewis is a drummer with an enviable sense of timing and a Don Lamond-like approach to big band work. Further, it revives at least four masterpieces of a decade or so ago, tunes which are likely to retain their validity long after many of today's "originals" are forgotten. For some years I have looked on Art Pepper as the greatest solo player in jazz since Charlie Parker and this present LP, which I cannot recommend too highly, merely reinforces that opinion.”

Art Pepper - 1925-1982 And His "Second Career"

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"The Second Career" by John Lithweiler originally appeared in the January/February 1998 issue of Coda magazine, and can also be found in Todd Selbert’s The Art Pepper Companion: Writings on a Jazz Original [200] in a slightly revised and expanded version. Its publisher, the Cooper Square Press, still makes Todd’s compilation available.

I’m a big fan of collective writing approaches to an artist’s work as it offers the Jazz listener many different perspectives on a Jazz musician’s rather than the one provided by a biographer, per se.

This is in no way meant to minimize the monumental effort and skill involved in researching and writing a professional biography, but rather, as a way of saying a word or two in defense of the multi author compilation of which, in my opinion, there are two few that focus on Jazz and its makers.

Art Pepper’s career is often viewed as a First Career, which took place from about 1945-1960 and, as John notes, a Second Career that occurred from “ ...the mid-'70s to his death in 1982,” the interregnum between them caused by Pepper’s stints in federal prison due to drug abuse and criminal activity related to it.

Todd’s The Art Pepper Companion offers articles that seem to favor one or the other of these two stages, but rarely both, so, in this regard, it is particularly helpful to someone like me who favors Art’s First Career but has a difficult time coming to terms with his music during the Second Career.

John takes on an attempt to explain the distinctions and relative merits between these two phases in Art Pepper's career - especially the second - through a review of the following later-in-Art’s career recordings:

ART PEPPER

With Duke Jordan in Copenhagen 1981 * Galaxy 2GCD-

8201-2(2-CDset)

ART PEPPER-ZOOT SIMS

Art N' Zoot * Pablo 2310-957-2

ART PEPPER

Tokyo Debut * Galaxy 4201-2

“Was Art Pepper a greater artist during his second career (the mid-'70s to his death in 1982) than during his first career as a mature artist (the 1950s to I960)? Gary Giddins and Laurie Pepper certainly seem to think so, in the expanded 1994 Da Capo edition of the book Straight Life, and moreover, Laurie maintains that Art recorded with more major jazz names during his second career — quite an assertion, considering all those 1950s dates with singers and the likes of Chet Baker, Jimmy Giuffre, Warne Marsh, Hampton Hawes, Red Norvo, the Red Garland Trio, and on and on, including the Kenton band and crowds of ex-Kentonites.

There's no question that Pepper was a different artist in his second career. The wonderful Galaxy recordings have been, up to recently, the best available evidence of that. And now during the 1990s Laurie Pepper has begun leasing, to the Fantasy combine, broadcast recordings of Pepper's second career, material that originally appeared on Japanese and European releases according to Todd Selbert's Pepper discography. The prospect of future issues is a real matter of intrigue, for Art Pepper was billed as a sideman on a number of sessions ostensibly led by Sonny Stitt, Lee Konitz, Jack Sheldon, Milcho Leviev, and others. The purported sidemen on those tend to be Pepper's regular quartet, as in Sheldon's Angel Wings LP (Atlas LA27-1001), which includes 3 originals, 2 by Pepper and one Sheldon-Pepper collaboration. As a matter of fact, Sheldon plays fine lyric trumpet throughout the date, but Pepper, in beautiful form, takes the lion's share of solo space, and the cover photo tells the story: A glum Sheldon, on the right, points to Pepper, center, gloating over all his loot.

What happened to Pepper between his first and second careers? Prison and the Synanon cult, of course, and a much-reported period of obsession with Coltrane that you'd hardly have anticipated from the earlier, distinctively original Pepper, a bop era artist with swing era origins. Terry Martin's 1964 Jazz Monthly essays indicated the opposing pulls of black and white jazz on Pepper's early development, the models of Benny Carter and Lee Konitz (Pepper liked to cite the Lester Young tradition as his principal inspiration), the growth of Pepper's mastery of improvised form and linear flow. Joined by Martin, I heard Pepper for the first time in 1974 at a college jazz band conference, Pepper was teaching clinics for Buffet saxophones in those days; prior to his set, chaperoned by an obviously worried Ken Yohe of Buffet, Pepper showed all the symptoms of stark, paralyzing terror. Yet, joined by trombonist Bill Watrous and accompanied by an uncoordinated student rhythm section, he played excellently and at length.

The differences between the first and second Art Pepper, including the influence of Coltrane, became evident later, when he began touring in clubs and concerts. Pepper liked to draw attention to the differences, by performing, along with his new songs, new versions of his early triumphs. As Martin wrote, one of Pepper's early breakthroughs was his lovely 1951 solo feature on Shorty Rogers' "Over the Rainbow." Of course Sun Ra's satiric solo versions point up for all time the song's inherent emotional dishonesty, with the yearning octave leap that begins and the comforting major thirds and soothing cadences that follow. But Pepper, who played it again and again in his second career, seemed to wish the "Rainbow" fantasy would come true.

In his 1970s and 1980s versions, Pepper liked to open "Over the Rainbow" with an unaccompanied alto intro, beginning with a cascading phrase that had no direct reference to the theme. The version in Art N’ Zoot has his intro in something of a pure form, with variations on that opening phrase notable for fourths and flatted intervals that evade the theme or at best dwell on its yearning qualities. He then interpolates minor notes into his theme variations and this opening solo includes a high, harsh, anguished tone to indicate that Harold Arlen's world is in fact far from his. That high note predicts the harshness (sheets of sound) that begins his second solo and the strained, climactic octave leap. He finds no comfort in the concluding cadence, either, for he creates sheets of sound yet again in the rubato coda. His Copenhagen version develops rather similarly, though after the cascading opening phrase his intro is quite diffuse; this version has the advantage of Duke Jordan's solo, for in contrast to the tormented yearning in Pepper's broken phrases, the pianist creates long lines of flowing bop melody.

On the other hand, there's "Winter Moon," a near-masterpiece in the 1956 Hoagy Carmichael recording: Pepper's opening solo is the plaintive, long-tone, minor-key theme with spare decorations, and the sorrow that emerges from his simple 24 bars is unforgettable. The long Galaxy solo (1980), over a string arrangement intended to dramatize the song's starkness, is itself admirable but sounds melodramatic by contrast One of his very best blues solos is "Las Cuevas De Mario" in the 1960 Smack Up, a marvelous trip through strange melodies and dislocated accents in 5/4 meter; Pepper's 1977 Village Vanguard version by contrast struggles to be coherent. There are the fast, biting, brittle, staccato Pepper solo in the 1960 "Rhythm-A-Ning," ending in an ecstatic chorus of pure accents—surely this is rhythmic virtuosity to rival Charlie Parker—and his Copenhagen "Rhythm-A-Ning" solo, slower but with a similar tension of varied phrase shapes and silences, with sheets of sound erupting in the third chorus and recurring thereafter; Pepper may be preferable in the earlier version, but Duke Jordan's 1981 piano solo, in delightful long lines, all the brightness of Bud Powell without the mania, is quite superior to Wynton Kelly in the earlier.

One more comparison: "Besame Mucho," in which Pepper, in a great 1956 Tampa recording, concentrated a lifetime's tragedy into two wrenching choruses. In his second career he played the minor-key piece often, including a comparatively subdued ballad version in that 1979 Tokyo Galaxy disc. There's a 1978 version not to be missed in Art Pepper Live In Japan Vol. I (Storyville 4128). with squalls of Coltrane like fury in the intro and coda vamps. The Copenhagen version has less dramatic dynamic contrasts but does include strained tones and sheets of sound. These later versions are in considerably more broken phrases than the Tampa "Besame Mucho," and these solos' very length determines that they're more diffuse solos. Admirable though these solos are, they're coarser works that deliberately attempt to evoke the tragedy that grew naturally from the lyric tensions in the early version.

What are the differences between early and late Art Pepper? Like his first master, Benny Carter, his alto sound, always beautiful, acquired a firmer quality over time, and it probably never sounded so brilliant as when Rudy Van Gelder recorded him in that 1979 Elvin Jones Quartet session, originally on a Japanese 45 r.p.m. LP (Evidence CD 22053). His vibrato, always so slow that it was more like a little quaver, widened. The later Pepper played longer solos, of course; now that he was a full-time bandleader, he structured performances on a large scale, and he especially liked routines such as the vamps that often opened and closed his pieces. Necessarily, the forms of his solos, ever a crucial concern with Pepper, also changed. While he was recurrently capable of creating beautiful melodic phrases, the more crucial element of his soloing was tension sustained and developed through fine sensitivity to phrase lengths, accenting, and rests. Slightly off-pitch tones, emphatically bent tones, low register passages became more frequent. High, strained tones, or overtones; multiphonics tones; momentary flurries of 16th notes to end phrases, all appeared, adding further stresses to his lines. All these expressive elements added to the tension of his solos, but then his sheets of sound that became climactic developments of vamps recalled an aspect of Coltrane's cyclic forms, too. Interestingly, Pepper's sheets of sound were not rising chromatic scales, like Coltrane often used, but arpeggios — even at his most extreme his harmonic vocabulary was founded on pro-bop practices.

Altogether, the body of his solos offered the early Art Pepper kinds of tension and phrasing, with more elaborate details and settings. The newest formal element was the one-chord intros and codas, which by their absence of mobile harmony demanded a different approach to shaping solos. That these changes did not, to him, devalue his earlier kind of lyricism was shown by his many clarinet solos and many of his last duets with pianist George Cables. As a generalization, joy, tragedy, pure beauty, and the emotions between them arose from Pepper's lines themselves in the 1950s. The later Pepper often consciously sought to evoke these emotions in his late career, especially in his extended routines. But throughout his career, early as well as late, he was an uncommonly self-aware artist, and his fine care for solo creation led to intimate revelations in both periods.

Tokyo Debut comes from his first tour of Japan (4/5/77), upon which he was accompanied by members of Cal Tjader's rhythm section. Unlike Charlie Parker and most other jazz players of his generation, Pepper had a real affinity for Latin phrasing, fitting accents and phrase lengths to mambo and samba patterns. So the Latin specialties, "Manteca” and two standards from Black Orpheus, in which he joins Tjader's full, quite extroverted band, are thoroughly sparkling. As usual, he played "Straight Life" very fast, at a "KoKo'- like tempo, like a diatonic Parker. Considering that Pepper always denied any direct Parker influence, let's say that his great freedom of accenting surely had affinities with Parker's discoveries. There's a medium-up blues, "The Spirit Is Here," that brilliantly shows Pepper's sense of structure, It begins with a little rift' theme that he varies for a few successive choruses; variations of that riff then pop up in every second chorus that he improvises, resulting in an unusually unified solo.

Art N’ Zoot (9/27/81) has a changing cast of characters including Victor Feldman, Ray Brown, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, and Barney Kessel; there's Pepper's solo feature, "Over the Rainbow," and three solo features for Sims plus "Wee" ("I Got Rhythm") and the blues for the saxes together. It's revealing that Sims, with his uplifting swing, meant more to Pepper than Getz, with all his virtuosity, and it's interesting that on this concert Zoot plays a cheerful, rifting "Girl From Ipanema" at a faster tempo than Getz did, with no hint of Getz's melancholy. Alto and tenor open and close the slow blues as duo improvisations, but the remarkable empathy of Pepper, Warne Marsh, and Ted Brown in two 1956 albums is impossible here. Instead, Pepper and Sims provide a more conventional battle-of-the-saxes show; they make interesting contrasts, with the altoist (the bluesier of the pair anyway) interjecting funky phrases and the tenorist swinging with a rude swagger and a sometime broad, dramatic sound that recalls Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster.

None of these three concert albums is with Pepper's standard rhythm section. Despite all his work with forceful bop pianists, for his own sessions he preferred less aggressive, less distinctive accompanists who supported with simple but hip harmonies and who soloed in pretty melodies, on something less that Pepper's own high creative level; think of the likes of Ronnie Ball, Pete Jolly, Marty Paich, Dolo Coker in earlier years, and later the many tours and recordings with the ingenious Cables. All of which makes the two-disc Copenhagen (7/3/81) especially attractive, for Duke Jordan is truly the costar throughout the program, complementing Pepper's complex self-examinations with their emotional opposite: long lines of melodies that flow inevitably, yet with surprise and delight. Moreover, Jordan's intensity is of Pepper's own quality, so the concert is uncommonly well-sustained — was the altoist, at any other time in his career, matched with another pianist this inspired? Too bad there wasn't more rehearsal time, because I for one would have loved to hear Pepper take on the challenge of excellent, and once-familiar, Jordan themes like "Flight to Jordan" and "Jor-du."

The album has a flying start in the terrific "Blues Montmartre"— Pepper was at his best in up-tempo blues — with the theme generating his developments in early choruses, then riff choruses alternating with melodic choruses, new material alternating with developments of earlier ideas, and exultant sheets of sound by the 18th chorus, an ingeniously structured solo followed by particularly witty Jordan playing. The vocalized elements in "What Is This thing Called Love?" rise to the climax of another especially well-formed alto solo. He generates tension in the vamp intro to the fast "Caravan" by alternating bars of brittle sound with bar-long rests, playing broken phrases that become unsnarled with the accompanying rhythm, all confined in a half-octave in the lower middle register. Not until the theme bridge does he break free, but only briefly, for the punchy, low, minor piano chords call him back to brittle, eventually convoluted phrasing throughout his solo on the chords. There is a driving piano solo, and the vamp alto coda is the finishing development of an extended, harrowing performance.

The ultra-last tempo of "Cherokee" segues into the ultra-slow "Radio Blues"; the tempo extremes finally defeat the musicians. After all the complexities of the preceding selections, the relative respite of "Good Bait" is welcome. It's a lyrical clarinet solo, intense but without strained passages, with early low-register choruses over only bass and drums, then by the fourth chorus higher tones that suggest something of the sound of Lester Young's metal clarinet. The final piece, at the same tempo, is "All the Things You Are," with a perfectly appropriate conclusion: Pepper and Jordan alternating eights and fours, playing off and fulfilling each other's lines and finally pointing up the good musical feelings between the pair. As you'd expect, throughout the 11 songs bassist David Williams and drummer Carl Burnett provide very alive accompaniment.

Pepper obviously believed in Lester Young's dictum that a solo should tell a story. Even without the book Straight Life, you can hear themes of his life in his playing — the affinity for darkness in his minor-key pieces; his quest for ecstasy especially in his ultra-fast-tempo pieces; the broken phrasing that suggests a disrupted consciousness; above all else, the great tension that sustains all of his solos. The quest for beauty is in all of his music and the vocalized techniques of his second career are an almost visceral reflection of the pain involved in his quest. You may hear his phrasing now and then in improvisers like Frank Morgan and Bud Shank, but unlike some songs of, say, Jordan, none of his themes became standards, and by and large Pepper had no more direct influence on his fellow saxophonists than Jelly Roll Morton had on other pianists of his era. The music, the beauty, the intensity were Pepper's story and his alone.”

Martin Williams Gettin’ Together with Art Pepper in Jazz Changes

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"Martin Williams is perhaps the greatest living jazz critic."

- Gunther Schuller

"Martin Williams is one of the few truly distinguished commentators on jazz and one whose writing on the subject is acknowledged as a model of reflective, informed, and meaningful criticism."

- Choice

"One of the most distinguished critics (of anything) this country has produced."

- Gary Giddins, The Village Voice

"Read anything of Williams you can getyour hands on....His knowledge of jazz is all but unmatched."

- Washington Review

"His is a distinctively colorful style, a cogent blend of history, criticism, and personal opinion."

- Library Journal

"Williams is the most lucid writer on American jazz traditions, able in the shortest pieces to encapsulate major thoughts and present them, in com­prehensible form to the general reader."

- Kirkus Reviews

"Martin Williams persistently gets at essences, and that is why he has con­tributed so much to the very small body of authentic jazz criticism."

- Nat Hentoff

"The most distinguished critic America has produced."

-Dan Morgenstern

Whenever possible, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles tries to celebrate the work of its mentors [in the broader, more informal sense of that word] – those writers and critics who taught us all so much about Jazz and its makers over the years.

In this regard, Martin Williams has been absent from these pages far too long.

So we thought we’d rectify this omission by bringing up Martin’s thoughts about one of our favorite Art Pepper recordings by – Getting’ Together [Contemporary 7573/Original Jazz Classics CD 169-2] – on which the alto saxophonist is joined by trumpeter Conte Candoli and Miles Davis’ rhythm section at that time: Wynton Kelly, piano, Paul Chambers, bass and Jimmy Cobb, drums.

Martin wrote the original liner notes for the recording in 1960 and then re-worked them as printed below when they were published as a sub-chapter in Jazz Changes [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992]. As the notes below explain, Contemporary M/C 3573 paired Art Pepper with the Miles Davis rhythm section of early 1960.

“The square's question about jazz may not be such a bad question if you think about it. I mean the one that goes, "Where's the melody?" or "Why don't they play the melody?" We could borrow the famous mountain climber George Mallory's answer, "Be­cause it's there." But a more helpful one might be, the melody is whatever they are playing, or to put it more directly, they don't play it because they can make up better ones. And if I wanted to introduce the square to that fact, one of the people whose work I could use to show it would be Art Pepper.

Getting’ Together [Contemporary 7573/Original Jazz Classics CD 169-2] is a sort of sequel to the earlier Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (Contemporary C3532, stereo S7018), a set I would call one of the best in the Contemporary catalog.

That one was made in 1957 and the rhythm section of the title was the very special one of the Miles Davis quintet of the time: Red Garland, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums. This one is made with the (again special) Miles Davis rhythm section of February 1960. Paul Chambers is still there, Wynton Kelly is on piano, Jimmie Cobb is on drums. That former session was made under pressure, for not only was the section available only briefly, Pepper himself had not played for two weeks before the night it was done. For this one, the Davis group was again in town only briefly, and again, there was only one recording session. In fact, the last track, Gettin Together, made because Art wanted to record a blues on tenor, is just Pepper, Kelly, and the rest playing ad lib while the tape was kept rolling.

All of which obviously does not mean that either session was made with the kind of haste that makes waste.

I began by saying that I could use Art Pepper's playing to convince our square friend that jazzmen can make up better melodies than the ones they start with. (There are many others I could use, but let's stick to the subject here, Art Pepper.) And I could well begin with an Art Pepper record like Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise, for Pepper states that theme with none of its usual melodramatics and proceeds to make up melodic lines spontaneously that are superior to those he began with. And I might also use it as an example of the emotional range he can develop within a solo from a very limited point of departure, and without eccentricity or crowding.

Pepper is a lyric or melodic player (those words are vague but when you have heard him, you know what they mean). Very good test pieces for such qualities are slow ballads—and many a jazzman of Pepper's generation wanders aimlessly and apolo­getically through such tests. There are two ballads here. Why Are We Afraid? is a piece Art Pepper plays in the movie The Subterra­neans. Diane is named for Art Pepper's wife; he has recorded it before but he prefers this version. So do I. It especially seems to me an emotionally sustained piece of improvised impressionism, and Kelly also captures and elaborates its mood both in his accompaniment and solo. Unlike many comparable players of his generation in jazz, Art is not so preoccupied with making a melody that is "pretty" that he falls into lushness or weakness in his melodic line. What saves him is a kind of rhythmic fibre and strength that some lyric and "cool" players decidedly lack. (Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise is again a very good example.) For that reason, it should surprise no one to hear him, particularly on the tracks where he plays tenor here, absorbing some rhythmic ideas from the better players in the current Eastern "hard" school. And to show how well they fit and are assimilated, that ad lib blues, Getting Together, is prime evidence. Surely one of the things that makes jazz so unsentimental and fluent an art is the jazzman's rhythmic flexibility, and that is something Art Pepper has always been on to.

The events of Art Pepper's biography include the fact that he took his first music lessons at nine, but had been passionately interested in music even before that. In his teens he was fully committed to jazz and playing nightly on Central Avenue in Los Angeles with Dexter Gordon, Charlie Mingus, Gerald Wiggins, Zoot Sims, and at eighteen he was a regular member of Lester Young's brother Lee's group. Subsequently he was with Benny Carter and achieved his widest recognition when he joined Stan Kenton on alto for the second time, from 1946 through 1951. When these tracks were made he was, with Conte Candoli, one of Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All Stars at Hermosa Beach. If Bijou the Poodle (Pepper's dog, by the way) and Thelonious Monk's Rhythm-A-Ning have a somewhat more prepared air to them than the other tracks, it is because Pepper and Candoli (whose past includes trumpet chairs with Woody Herman and Kenton) were playing them regularly at Rumsey's club.

As I said, Chambers (who is surely as innately a jazz musician as any man ever was) has been with the Miles Davis groups since 1955. Wynton Kelly's past is illustrious enough to have included work with the other major trumpeter in the modern idiom, Dizzy Gillespie; he has also accompanied Dinah Washington and Lester Young, among others. Jimmie Cobb was brought into the Davis group at the suggestion of Cannonball Adderley in 1959.

It should come as no surprise that Art finds playing with a rhythm section picked by Miles Davis such a pleasure and stimulation. It is true that those two horn-men "use the time" (as musicians put it) differently; Pepper is closer to the beat in his phrasing for one thing. But Miles Davis is a unique combination of surface lyricism, concentrated emotion, and has a decided, but not always obvious rhythmic flexibility. (He has been called a man walking on eggshells; a man with his kind of inner emotional terseness would surely crush eggshells to powder.) The sections he picks for himself might therefore be ideal for Art Pepper, for, although I don't think they convey emotion in the same way, they have many qualities in common. Miles' rhythm sections have been accused of playing "too loud" by some people. I am not sure what that means exactly, but I am sure that they are never heavy and always swing at any dynamic level they happen to be using, and that is a very rare quality. Their swing always has the secret kind of forward movement that is so important to jazz. (A handy explanation of "swing" might be "any two successive notes played by Paul Chambers.")

There are several other things on this record that gave me pleasure that I would recommend you listen for. One of the first is the unity of Pepper's solo on Whims of Chambers and the way it builds. (You cannot make a good solo just by stringing phrases together to fit the chord changes—but nobody admits how many players don't try to do much more than that.) The unity is subtle, but it is not obscure, and once grasped it becomes a delightful part of experiencing the solo. For instance, if you keep the phrase he opens with in mind, then notice how much of the solo is melodically related to that phrase. And also how much of it is related to Chambers' theme. Such unity is never monotonous because Art Pepper gets inside of these melodic ideas, finds their meaning, and develops them musically—he is never just playing their notes or playing notes mechanically related to their notes.

The curve of the solo is also a delight. In a very logical way, more complex lines of shorter notes begin in Art's third chorus (that is the one where Kelly re-enters behind him). They reach a peak of dexterity in the fourth, tapering to a more lyric simplicity at its end. There is a very effective echo of those more complex melodies at the end of the fifth chorus, as the solo is gradually returning to the simpler lines it began with. (There is nothing really difficult or forbidding about following these things; if you can follow a "tune" you can follow these melodic structures, although they are far more subtle and artful than a "tune" is. And following them gives the kind of pleasure that digging deeper always does.)

Thelonious Monk's Rhythm-A-Ning may sound like only a visit to that "other" jazz standard (other than the blues, that is) which its title indicates. It isn't just that. And the best part is the "middle" or "bridge." Most popular songs are written with two melodies and if we give each a letter to identify it, the form of them comes out to be AABA. That B part of Rhythm-A-Ning is an integral part of the piece because its melody is a development of one of the ideas in the A part. The other thing is the way it is harmonized. You can easily hear that it is unusual when they play it the first time. Hearing what they do with it in the solos I leave to you to enjoy. I was also intrigued with the idea that Monk would get a smile out of Pepper's writing on Bijou.

A musician friend who had recently returned from California and was answering my questions about Art Pepper said, "I think maybe Art knows now that he plays not to win polls or be famous or any of that, but just because he has it in him to play and he just needs to."

If a man has come to that insight, I think you can hear it in the way he plays. I think I hear it here. (1960)”

The following video features Art Pepper, Conte Candoli and THE rhythm section on Whims of Chambers from Getting’ Together.

The esteemed writer Ray Bradbury once said: “You make your way as you go.”

Thanks to Martin Williams many insights and observations, our travels in the World of Jazz a far richer one.