I have been listening to some early Art Pepper albums. It is a shame that he is not as well appreciated as he was when I was getting in to jazz in the early 1980s. His work inthe 1970s was rightly appreciated but I also think that he was hugely impressive from the off. "Surf Ride" is a good start and must have been made not long after he had been the star pupil of the great Benny Carter who has moved across to the West Coast. The titles all seem to relate to the contents of a spice rack (although probably not as exotic as mine having been inspired by Sabrina Ghayour!) but are largely contrafacts on things like "Tea for two", "Indiana" and "After you've gone." The album is a bit depressing because the chord changes now come across as being really hackneyed and I don't think you could get away with producing a record like this in 2022. I find the soloing to be very good although not as fully formed as he became a few years later. Personally, the appeal is largely lost because the material is a bit weak with no memorable themes. The rest of the Avid collection include the album with Marty Paich which I have always thought to be sensational. As far as the other two albums with Conte Candoli and Jack Sheldon, I feel that these disks are loaded with clues as to how his playing would eventually evolve 20 years later. There has sometimes been a feeling that Art Pepper was a decent bopper in the 50s and only emerged at his full potential when he was released from prison. The latter material has a visceral appeal which set it apart from a lot of the mediocre jazz the 1970s produced yet I do not think that he was less than brilliant beforehand. His playing always packed a punch.
I envy Joseph being in a position where there are plenty of great alto players from earlier generations who have necessarily faded from attention with their passing and who await re-discovery. No one seem to fete the likes of Pepper, Arthur Blythe, Jimmy Lyons or even Thomas Chapin these days - all of them musicians who dominated their respective generation of jazz musicians at the time. It would be a shame to assume that Cannonball and Dolphy were the dominated the alto saxophone at that time when it came to shugging off the influence of Bird.
I envy Joseph being in a position where there are plenty of great alto players from earlier generations who have necessarily faded from attention with their passing and who await re-discovery. No one seem to fete the likes of Pepper, Arthur Blythe, Jimmy Lyons or even Thomas Chapin these days - all of them musicians who dominated their respective generation of jazz musicians at the time. It would be a shame to assume that Cannonball and Dolphy were the dominated the alto saxophone at that time when it came to shugging off the influence of Bird.
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