Art Pepper/The Hollywood All-Star Sessions

5GCD-4431-2/Notes

High Jingo  

When Art was the leader, everything was too important. Early in his career he gave up trying to relax. He regarded the whole idea of relaxing onstage as ignoble, as implying a lack of respect for the desperate thing he was attempting: within the strict limits set by his own skill, imagination, and soulfulness, by his instrument, the chord structure and style of a tune, and in collaboration with a group of musicians struggling with their own limitations, he was, in full view of everyone, about to improvise unedited and deathless art. About performing (and recording) he'd said, "If you're not scared that means you're not going to try to do anything different." So he surrendered to ego, to terror and desire. Each performance, each recording was his last word, letting the world know now just how good he finally was. The rewards of this warrior's attitude were frequently spectacular. As one of his producers, Ed Michel, said, Art conveyed in his music a "sense of shared danger." But as a sideman Art was calm. He was cheery. He was docile and selfless--relieved not to be the one responsible for how things went. And the results, if not "different" and surprising, were often wonderful. Wonderful is what these sessions are. They were conceived of as a trick, a lie, and Art, though he knew better, could persuade himself to believe the lie--that he was just a sideman--and relax.

            The first album was recorded in March of '79 when Art's last comeback was gaining real momentum. (This, his final "return," began with the East Coast tour in '77, which culminated in the magnificent Village Vanguard Recordings on Contemporary [9CCD-4417-2].) His autobiography, Straight Life, would come out at the end of '79, getting him international press attention and enough celebrity to instigate the career-end whirl of touring and recording that finally satisfied Art's drive to be known and heard.

            Art had signed with Fantasy’s Galaxy label in September of '78 and had recorded Art Pepper Today, in December. His exclusive contract restricted extracurricular recording. But he could appear on other labels as a sideman. So when we were approached by Mariko Ohmura, the U.S. liaison of the producer of all the sessions for Atlas, I explained this to her, and the truth was bent accordingly. Art was in fact always the leader on these Atlas albums. He chose the bands, okayed the cuts, and was paid more than any other artist even though his name and photo could be no bigger on the album cover than anybody else's.

            They knew what they wanted, the producer, elderly-appearing, wraithlike Mr. Ishihara, and his crew. They had a list of artists and a list of tunes. They wanted West Coast jazz musicians of the Fifties playing the same music they'd recorded then. They loved it and could sell it in Japan. And because he was a "sideman," Art wasn't affronted when he was asked (with masterful indirectness and gratifying reverence) by this tiny foreign label to accommodate himself to certain limitations--something he never would have done for Galaxy. Of course Fantasy president Ralph Kaffel would not have made the request, profitable though the results might have been. And when it came right down to it at the sessions Art didn't really play as he had 20, 30 years earlier. It wasn't in him to imitate anyone, even himself.

            Art was an original, but he wasn't an innovator, and, especially when young, he adhered to the jazz conventions of his time. When he made his name during and after his stint with Stan Kenton, he lived in his hometown, L.A., and was gigging with some very restrained players. I think that operated in his favor because Art always needed something he could work against--he had to feel resistance. It was like those physical laws, gravity or inertia, closest to, I suppose, the principle behind the steam engine: he had to be bottled up or frustrated or opposed to reach his power. So, though the nature of his emotional life was always extreme and violent, the music with which he had to express it was rife with limitations. His performances were brilliant because the pressure of that tension made them hard as diamonds. And by the time, after Coltrane's influence, he loosened those restrictions, he got his power from fighting the inexorable limitations of his own lifetime: he had so few years left; he’d sacrificed so many, getting loaded, going to jail. That’s what you heard at the end.

            But here, to some extent, the old limits were reinstated, and listening to this material now, for the first time in almost 20 years, I recognize, as I didn't then, when we were very serious, a playful, great idea--starting out with the first album, titled Funk'n Fun--right concept, right people, right place (the relaxed Sage & Sound Studios in Hollywood), right tunes, right time.

We picked all the personnel for session number one. I think Art had been playing in a rehearsal band with Bill Watrous and admired him, and Watrous's name was on Atlas's list. He was a poll-winner. Popular in Japan, a fabulous player and a good guy, he had the right sound and style for what the producer had in mind, a "West Coast sensibility." Do I mean that he’s white? No. He plays pretty and melodic and with (at least a pretense of) ease and a lot of restraint.

            Though these were jam session dates, Bill Watrous asked that they play "P. Town," and he wrote and brought "For Art's Sake," an inspired piece for these particular artists with its choppy stop-time patterns. "Funny Blues" was on the Atlas list. Art recorded it with Russ Freeman in 1956. "Angel Eyes" was on the list. I can't find any evidence that Art recorded it before, and it's such a lovely song. It's stunning here mainly because Bob Magnusson and Carl Burnett, Art's regular bassist and drummer at the time, were with him. A pickup rhythm section, no matter how good, usually destroyed Art's ballads.

            What Art wanted with a ballad was to slow it down so he could rip its guts out. As he soloed, Art would push the tempo with his body, bobbing ahead of the beat, playing flurries, lightning phrases. His agitation was misread by sidemen who didn't know him as a wish to take the whole thing into doubletime and play a "New York Ballad," and they often did. And many of them were probably made anxious by those everlastingly attenuated bars, wondering how to fill up all that space--space Art needed so he could shape his silences inside it and still have room to mumble, preach, implore, and sing. Russ Freeman has no problem with this tempo. I love his lines.

            I've always loved Russ's style on Art's old records, especially on The Art Pepper Quartet (Tampa, OJC-816), and I asked Art to request him as pianist. Russ hadn't been playing much, but he'd shown up for the Among Friends, gig, a one-shot recording Art had made for Discovery about six months earlier, in fact the day before he signed with Galaxy. At that September date when Art was just recovering from a weird, incapacitating illness I saw the confidence playing with Russ gave him and how well they got along. Russ is an upright citizen, but Art knew him back when Russ was crazy and felt less discomfort in his company than he would have if Russ were a square. Art tended to get uptight around people who weren't apparent lunatics, cripples, addicts, or ex-cons. He assumed that if they didn't obviously dote, they must look down on him. So the two of them had shared memories, and Russ was affectionate and gentle with Art. I also believed Art played especially well with Russ--and that's confirmed here (and at the second of the two Sonny Stitt dates in this collection).

            Bob and Carl weren't criminals or addicts. Being the band manager, I'd lobbied for them for that reason among others. But they were nonjudgmental, very diplomatic. Well, Bob was a little too normal for Art's taste (Art said he reminded him of ‘Li'l Abner) but he had the kind of doom, boom, strapping, plopping, swinging, singing sound Art worked so well with. And he appreciated Art's surreal sense of humor because he was a wit himself. On tour once as we descended from a van, me carrying our luggage (Art's and mine; he had an awful hernia), Art got mad at big, strong Bob for not assisting me, and made some carom criticism, like, "You shouldn't lift those things."

            "Oh?" Bob asked, and innocently turned to me, "Oh, are you enceinte?" I fell down laughing.

             As for Carl, sane, yeah, but he was the very air the band breathed when they played, an essential guy. Art called him a "team player," frequently announced onstage he was his favorite drummer. We'd toured with Billy Higgins, and I liked him best, but Art got mad at Billy. And I'll get to that.

            The second session follows on Disc #1, and so we move from heaven to heaven. Or to paradise. This is my favorite of the sessions, because of the presence of Jack Sheldon, to whom I'm partial, and how Art plays when he's with Jack: The Frolics of the Soulful.

            Jack Sheldon is both crazy and affectionate, and he's another bad boy and another real romantic. Sometimes when Art's horn comes in on a recording, you're aware of the sensation of your heart breaking before you realize that, no, it's just Art's voice. Jack's got that, too, and not only is this my favorite session, but "Historia de un Amor" (on the second disc) is my favorite of all the songs, because they make it so affecting, so flagrantly, fragrantly romantic and sad.

            They'd been playing it together for a while.

            For a couple of summers at the end of the Seventies Jack had a steady weekend gig as a comedian-and-singer at a club in Monterey. Art and Blue Mitchell (on trumpet) and Dolo Coker, I think, and I forget the others, accompanied Jack--sweaty, fat, red, charming, and wildly funny, and a fabulous singer. He particularly had a way with ballads. "You Don't Know Me" used to make me cry, and "La Historia de un Amor" in Spanish. He wasn't really playing trumpet then, himself. He had a regular job as an actor on a sitcom and said he was worried about deforming his lip.

            Art asked that Jack be leader on this date and asked him to sing "Historia." The producer was just horrified. I was there in the control booth and saw him stare wildly around and start to giggle, embarrassed by Jack's sudden, unexpected crooning. He asked them to do a take without the vocal.

            I recently talked to Mariko about this, and she said the Japanese have no respect for musicians who "double" on other instruments or sing. They think it's undignified to flail around like that, looks like buffoonery. During one tour of Japan, Art was asked to, so he played behind a pop singer on a recording. Galaxy's Japanese licensee was outraged when they heard of it. Even though the date was done for their own label. It was, I guess, to them, like Jesus going in for juggling. But Art loved playing behind singers. Unlike most musicians, he admired singers, envied their directness of expression. He liked Jack's singing. He loved Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Steve Lawrence, Bill Withers, Roberta Flack. I've seen him blown away by Barbra Streisand ("Evergreen") and by Kathleen Ferrier (Brahms's "Alto Rhapsody"). He could hardly bear to listen to Ray Charles because he loved him so.    

            At the Sheldon session we had Art's regular pianist, Milcho Leviev, and Tony Dumas, Bob Magnusson's alternate, a young bassist Art liked at the time for very good reasons and you can hear them all.

            Don Ellis had brought Milcho, a Bulgarian dissident, to America. At home, before he’d been blacklisted, Milcho had been a prizewinning scorer of films. Art worked with Milcho in Don’s band where the two of them impressed each other, and because Milcho, wild-haired, high-strung, fragile, and as intense as Art, could read anything at sight, could swing in any time signature, and was extremely sensitive to Art’s moods, I persuaded Art to bring him with us on our first real tour of Japan. Art was just recovering from the illness I mentioned and was uncharacteristically diffident in his performing. I guessed, correctly, that Milcho’s fire would ignite Art’s. As his health improved, though, Art became more and more ambivalent about Milcho’s pyrotechnics. He enjoyed his boundless imagination and skill, but hated hearing too many notes behind his own solos. He was also afraid Milcho’s excesses might be perceived as “corny.” He was afraid he found them so. As far as Art was concerned “corny” was the worst thing anything could be.

             Milcho’s sensitivity to Art’s moods eventually became a liability. He often played great sweeping florid stuff behind Art’s solos just to revel in the flavor of Art’s stifled rage. That's what Art said. I didn’t believe him. But when they finally almost came to blows one night in London, out in front of Ronnie Scott’s, I realized we had to go our separate ways.

            After Art died Milcho confessed to me that he had been doing it on purpose. He said, bewildered, “I can’t explain it. It was as if I was possessed by some demon!”

            There’s no Milchovian sabotage on this disc. He sounds terrific here. And I remember one night in particular, on tour in Atlanta, Art sat beside me in the front row of a theater-in-the-round while Milcho soloed, and he gasped with pleasure at what Milcho did (and with superb restraint) with Art’s original, “Patricia." Of course, during the applause, before rising to rejoin the band, Art added in my ear, “He sure has learned a lot from me.”

            Listen to Tony, especially on that killing "Historia," how he carries the montuno at the end. Art really loved those extended, hypnotic two-chord meditations, and, csometimes, live, went on with them for ages. At the end of one tune (on the Maiden Voyage set--spectacular and complete in the Galaxy box [16GCD-1016-2]), he and the fellows carried the tail-end invention on so long, taking it so far outside, that during the wild applause and shouts that follow from the audience you hear a voice yell, “What was that?” And Art actually had to think about it for a moment before he remembered which tune they'd started out with and replied, surprised, amused, “Uh, that was ‘Landscape’.”

            Tony had a lot of subtlety, too, which Art liked. But on tour with us in Japan Art felt he wasn't giving his all in the performances and got more and more annoyed with him until one night, right on the stage, Art turned to Tony in the middle of his, Art's, solo, screaming at him, "Play!" In 13 years I'd never seen Art scold a sideman. And while the audience was watching!

            What brought it to that pass was that during soundchecks and rehearsals whenever Art asked Tony, "Do a little more..." of this, or less of that, Tony turned to Billy Higgins, whom he clearly idolized (not Art) and said, "But, Billy, aren't I doing that?" Or "Was I doing that?" And Billy always said--agreeing with him--"yes" or "no." Art ascribed a racial motive to this taking of sides and disdain for his authority. And that is why Art told the audience Carl was his favorite drummer for the first time on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall, in London, while he knew Billy watched him from the wings (and walked away right after that remark).

            But Tony wasn't Milcho and, only 24 years old, he was probably just defensive, not intentionally provocative. He was such a diffident kid he even invented a bass you couldn't hear (the "blitz" bass). One night in a hotel lobby, as the band gathered to go to the gig, somebody said, "We're all here except for Tony." Tony said, "I'm here." You see, you couldn't tell. As for Billy, I don't know why he did what he did. Anyway, for the rest of his life Art was perfectly content with Carl Burnett and with David Williams, the recklessly inventive bassist of his final band.

            All this aside, I love musicians. I used to watch them from the control booth or especially from the wings, and, fascinated, witness them transposed, themselves, from people I knew and toured with into gods.

            It felt different to me than watching any other kind of artist or technician. A surgeon saving a life in his mask with his skill and all the nerve and hubris, is also a fine thing to watch, and maybe if I watched the surgeon saving me. . . But with music it is always happening to you. What musicians do is translated in your head from their abstract language into one completely personal: not words, but hints, allusions, vague epiphanies better than anything real, nostalgia. Your particular grief and joy are voiced and echo in your bones, twitch in your muscles, bass and drums bumping your blood along right through your heart. Talk about the "lively arts." This is what it sounds like to be alive. What I watched these flawed and human characters create together, together, “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise,” was the equivalent of life.

            One last comment on the Art/Jack pairing. Listen to "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To." Especially the originally selected take. From Jack's seductive intro, like the nuzzling of a big old cozy Persian cat, through all the skillful, breezy solos and then his purring out again, it's sweet and perfect as can be, it's just a jewel.

The dates with Watrous and Sheldon were almost a year apart. The third session took place less than a week after the second, in February 1980. It was understood, the rhythm sections had to change from date to date. Art suggested drummer Roy McCurdy; they'd worked together on some club dates. Pete Jolly was on the producer's list and Art had worked with him a lot years earlier. He was the "leader." And we brought Bob Magnusson along again. It was a delightful session, smooth sailing, great music, two great ballads.

            "Y.I. Blues” was titled for Mr. Yasuyuki Ishihara, the producer of these sessions. Art hated the ceremonies and frustrations and the expense of shopping but was generous with tunes he wrote. The riff it's made from was recycled from another original blues of Art's (not named for any individual), but I'm not telling which.

            "Night and Day" as it appears here starts out with a Latin beat, going into a swing feel in the bridge. Art had a special liking for tightly formatted tunes made up of sections having different moods and rhythms (his "Ophelia," for instance, or his "Make a List") and he wrote a lot of them to solo on, keeping to the structure through his solos. And he attempts to do it here, though the jam session situation prevented it from jelling. Some sidemen had no patience with this rigidness, couldn't understand it, couldn't bring themselves to do it--which is why Art had to have his own band. As I said, limits are what gave Art his force, and also like many outlaws and people who feel out of control, he enjoyed rules.

            "Everything Happens to Me" might have been on the producer's list. It was at this point it reentered Art's repertoire. He'd played it in the early days and was to bring it to its apotheosis at the Maiden Voyage session in 1981 (Roadgame [Galaxy 5142/OJC-774]). It lives on the live recording of that session as the best ballad he maybe ever played. This version's pretty good. Well, it's magnificent but much too short. Art states the melody with such respect and tenderness; Pete Jolly takes three-quarters of a chorus, then Art takes the last eight, and he takes it beautifully, out. (If you listen, you can hear Art try several times to force the tempo to slow down by hanging back.)  

            We returned to Sage & Sound five months later for an historical occasion. At least that was the plan. This initial Sonny Stitt session just is not that great.

            First of all, forget the bedazzled stuff I just wrote about life and music. This is--in the argot of the era Ishihara harkened back to--something else. It has its moments, no doubt about it, when it swings like mad and takes your breath away, but both musicians seem to be having a bad day, and I can only talk about what I remember of Art's.

            He could pretend it was Sonny's date, but he knew that any date with Sonny was bound to have something of Armageddon about it. To quote him in Straight Life on the subject:

We both play alto, which is. . . It really makes it a contest. But Sonny is one of those guys, that's the thing with him. It's a communion. It's a battle. It's an ego trip. It's a testing ground.

            So Art didn't say so but he must have been worried about this session. He prepared for it, as only he could, by making matters worse.

            Art was a genius when it came to dramatic structure, and that's why his solos are usually so logical and compelling. He carried his sense of narrative into his life more than most people do, and his favorite story was the one where he triumphs over great odds. This sense of being opposed, as I keep repeating, energized him. So, two days before the first Sonny Stitt session, he accidentally cut the middle finger of his left hand deeply with a knife. (I'd grown to expect to see Art's blood spilled, almost ritually, on big occasions.) He appeared at the studio and greeted Sonny with a bandaged hand.

            Some other forces were at work. This guy, a "fan," I'll call him "Gus," showed up, uninvited. He brought Art drugs, downers that debilitated him, and alcohol. In the past I'd begged Gus not to do it. He said he wouldn't, but he always did, and finally, confronted yet again, he'd logically explained, "If I don't give him drugs he doesn't talk to me."

            I hated Gus as I have never hated anybody I've actually known personally--viscerally, from the very start; his skin was not a boundary; he seemed to ooze around you like an amoeba feeding--and wifelike, naturally, because he threatened that wobbly construct, Art's (relative) sobriety. I hated his Uriah Heep drunkard's demeanor and his sneakiness, and his persistence. There was nothing he wouldn't do for Art, however harmful it might be, and then he'd gloat when he saw Art all torn-up and stumbling. He was one of those people who loved to report to Art that so-and-so, some friend/musician, said critical things about him. And then watch avidly while Art took it in and got upset. It seemed to be necessary to him to somehow, anyhow invade Art. So Gus got Art loaded. Which was often also part of the narrative.

            Another feature of the date was that Art was not in his element. Bebop per se never was his actual element. Ted Gioia talks about this in West Coast Jazz and then goes on:

Eventually he would forge a partnership between swing and bop, hot and cool, that would stand out as one of the most authentic alto sounds of the 1950's. . . . Much of Pepper's genius lay in this serpentine ability to swallow whole the styles of his most illustrious contemporaries while remaining true to himself.

       Reviewers of Art's work during the time these Atlas albums were made described him as "an architect of emotion" and "ragingly expressionistic." That kind of thing calls for a little freedom. And it's ironic, and there's no getting away from it: the fiction of who was "leading" here acted against him in every possible way. Within the peculiar parameters of these Atlas sessions, Art didn't feel he could argue with what Sonny chose to play. So he was up against a high, windowless wall of bebop tunes, tunes he loved, true, but only when he included one or two of them in his usual sets for contrast, variation. The songs put the date on Sonny's turf.

       Art mythologized their conflict and his victory vividly, years earlier, in his little verbal coda in Straight Life. (I put it at the end, but he told it on day one of taping for the book, convincing me we were embarking on a worthwhile project and cementing my commitment to it--which, despite his later wavering and stalling, was doubtless Art's intention at the time.) Talking about Sonny:

. . . He played for an hour maybe, did everything that could be done on a saxophone, everything you could play, as much as Charlie Parker could have played if he'd been there. Then he stopped. And he looked at me. Gave me one of those looks. "All right, suckah, your turn." And it's my job; it's my gig. I was strung out. I was hooked. I was drunk. I was having a hassle with my wife, Diane, who'd threatened to kill herself in our hotel room next door. I had marks on my arm. I thought there were narcs in the club, and I all of a sudden realized that it was me. He'd done all those things and now I had to put up or shut up or get off or forget it or quit or kill myself or do something.

I forgot everything, and everything came out. I played way over my head. I played completely different than he did. I searched and found my own way and what I said reached the people. I played myself, and I knew I was right, and the people loved it, and they felt it. I blew and I blew, and when I finally finished I was shaking all over; my heart was pounding; I was soaked in sweat, and the people were screaming; the people were clapping, and I looked at Sonny, but I just kind of nodded, and he went, "All right." And that was it. That's what it's all about."

       At Sage & Sound there was no audience, just a genial and still-combative Sonny (look at his expression as they shake hands for the camera) and a very different Art whose stylistic distance from the kind of music Sonny played had gotten greater with the years.

       Oh, and one more thing. At the Black Hawk, where that old battle took place, Art had his own band with him. I don't think Lou Levy and Chuck Domanico were the best accompanists for Art.

       Then everything improved. The second Sonny session on the third day of recording was not a bebop session; Art's finger was okay without the bandage; the door was barred to Gus; and on piano and bass were Russ Freeman and the wonderful John Heard. It featured a medium-tempo blues riff, "Atlas Blues," and a fun tenor romp, "Lester Leaps In"--on which both men just shine; the "fours" they trade, snapping at each other's heels, and finally playing simultaneously, are amazing, thrilling, a great ride, more than worth the wait. I love Art playing tenor. He's all over the horn. He's like a kid leaping around in his daddy's clothes: strutting, belching, farting, spitting, swearing, big! And there are two lovely if somewhat hurried solo ballads. "Imagination" is a knockout.

       P.S. If you're having trouble telling Art and Sonny apart, Art's the one who doesn't sound like Bird. Sonny has the cutting, soaring sound, always an edge to it, quite beautiful. And Sonny tends not to pause; he's in high gear and filled with confidence. Art's sound is tenderer, more conversational and nuanced. He stutters, makes a statement, thinks about it, makes another. Sonny ravishes, and Art seduces. So in the language of the Medium-is-the-Message man, McLuhan, Sonny's hot, and Art, no matter how he swings, is cool.

       Session number 5, recorded almost a year later in May of 1981, truly isn't an Art Pepper session and not just because the mixing often leaves his voice out in right field. It belongs to everybody on it. We have the great Bill Watrous again, sounding just beautiful on "These Foolish Things," and Bob Cooper, warm, original, and swinging. To me, Art's music yearns for miraculous horizons over the rainbow, while Coop's says, "We've got everything we need right here." Art adored him for his personal and musical sweetness, and his mellowness infects all the players at this session. The date, though populous, is tight as well and, unlike all the others, took just one day to complete. Shelly Manne's responsible for that. When Shelly walked into the studio, no matter whose session it was, he got it organized, allotting solo order, choosing tunes. He was one of those energetic natural producers, like Russ Freeman, who like to make plans: "Let's work out what we're gonna do at the end."

       Art loved Shelly and resented him. Shelly did patronize Art at times with his ribbing. Art could laugh at himself, often did, one of his charms, but he didn't enjoy anybody else doing it. Mild kidding, that barbed playfulness regular guys (which Shelly certainly was) like to indulge in with each other, wasn't in Art's arsenal. If Art were resentful, jealous, or hurt he grimly swallowed it or childishly (very rarely) spit it out at you--but more usually at me, airing his grievances afterwards.

Lee Konitz's name was on Atlas's list, and Art was glad to have a chance to play with him in January 1982.

       All I can say is Lee was in an odd mood. But I don't know him. Maybe he's always riddled with self-doubt. He was so modest and self-critical, belittling his enormous gifts, apologizing for his music, worrying about his sound. Art did time in jail with a lot of signifying macho braggarts. Well, there are plenty of cultures in which male puffing and preening is traditional as a kind of artful display, and when Art talked about himself, especially in later life, he had a habit of boasting defensively, superstitiously, often with great eloquence. As a sports fan, he was adept, as well, at the sort of inner psych-up pep talks athletes favor. This was something interviewers never grasped. They were nonplussed to hear an "artist" rant like Muhammad Ali (though Art used blank rather than rhymed verse as his mode of expression). Art admired Lee and sympathized but was appalled. He muttered to me, "My God, if I felt like that I'd have to kill myself."

       Lee's humility worked, at any rate, to keep Art from feeling intimidated, and Art rewarded him by willingly surrendering the session. As a result Art sounds relaxed and loose and daring. And then Lee went on to play so beautifully.

       Lee mostly chose the tunes. Art and I chose the rhythm section. Mike Lang is a studio pianist with outstanding talent as a jazz player and an abundance of earthy, bluesy soul. Art liked him very much, and several times we tried to lure him on the road with us. I love all his solos on this set. John Dentz is a great, great drummer. He and Art were old friends. Bob Magnusson, again, gave everyone a solid, swinging bottom voice to lean on. With many bass players there's that awful drop in energy when they come in to solo. That never happens with Bob. Come to think of it, this would have been a great band for playing gutsy, shouting blues of the Gully Low persuasion. That wasn't on the agenda, but it's a nice swinging session all the same.

       Lee's not a bebopper either, and Lee and Art have similar sounds, but on this set it's Lee's which is the sweetest. He has a way of slurring and blurring his attack that's extremely elegant. There's something fine to me about Lee's playing; each performance is like some bona fide objet. It reminds of me of a perfect little ivory Buddha I have. The bottom is flat, so, you would think, unfinished. But if you turn it over there are Buddha's little feet and toes. I think I'm trying to say there's nothing of Lee missing from his playing, and nothing is extraneous. It's integrally his. Nowhere more than on his own tune-in-two-keys here, "A Minor Blues in F."

       Art was an old-fashioned gentleman at heart, despite his history and occasional desperado posturing. He loathed loud talk, vulgarity, and loved good manners. In Straight Life Art speaks of manners and music:

. . . Once you become proficient mechanically, so you can be a jazz musician, then a lot of other things enter into it. Then it becomes a way of life, and how you relate musically is really involved.

     The selfish or shallow person might be a great musician technically, but he'll be so involved with himself that his playing will lack warmth, intensity, beauty and won't be deeply felt by the listener. He'll arbitrarily play the first solo every time. If he's backing a singer he'll play anything he wants or he'll be practicing scales. A person that lets the other guy take the first solo, and when he plays behind a soloist plays only to enhance him, that's the guy that will care about his wife and children and will be courteous in his everyday contact with people.

       That was Art's ideal. And from what little I have seen of Lee Konitz--at this session and at a jazz festival in Nice, where, out in the Roman amphitheater, I overheard him reprimand a young man for making salacious, sucking, kissing noises over two girls walking by (Oh, Lord, Lee said, I still remember, "They're souls; they're not just bodies")--he's got to be a gentle fellow too. So the two men had like ideas about behavior and about accompanying rather than trying to cut each other. And when Art chose to play clarinet on the delicious "Shadow of Your Smile," its wistful sound blended perfectly with Lee's sensuous fragility and complemented rather than overpowered it, which Art's alto might have done. I only wish the promise of the true collaboration which occurs, which you can hear in all their tracks from time to time, could have been realized, as it would have been if Art and Lee had played together a little more. Atlas called this album High Jingo.

The Art/Lee date was the last of the Atlas sessions. Five months later, in June of 1982, Art was stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage. Before he died, he told me he was satisfied; he'd done everything he had to do.

       Ted Gioia asked in West Coast Jazz:

Has any saxophonist played with such newfound energy so late in life?. . . Unlike virtually every other musician examined in this book, Pepper created his greatest work at the end of his life, long after the glory days of West Coast Jazz had passed. . . The praise he so wanted to hear, and [which] so long eluded him, is now a matter of record.

       There's no doubt in my mind. That came about because Art made his music so important, too important. He drove himself so desperately to make that last work great. When Gioia says Art's "late recordings stand as crowning achievements in Pepper's career," he's speaking of the serious Art-as-leader sessions, the ones for which Art took complete responsibility, by which he felt his reputation stood or fell. He's not talking about the recordings in this box, made for fun and easy money. And yet these are important records.

       For years Phil Woods argued and manipulated trying to get some record company to capture him and Art together. Unfortunately, for contractual reasons, it was not to be. Mr. Ishihara probably could have done it. But I doubt Phil would have settled for a no-royalty deal in a shabby backstreet studio, with, say, Bill Goodwin as the leader on the little Atlas label (and with a silly title). As it is, though, Mr. Ishihara did pull off a minor miracle. Like Blake's winking angel, 'twixt earnest & joke, casually, he brought Art together for the first and only time with two other major alto players, Stitt and Konitz. He reunited him, with outstanding results, with important colleagues of the past (Sheldon, Freeman, Jolly, Cooper, Manne), and teamed him happily with Bill Watrous and some other younger players. Right concept, right people, right place, right tunes, right time. And what a joy this music is to listen to--over and over and over again.

Laurie Pepper

June 2000