Art
Pepper Vol. VIIILive at the Winery, the eighth consecutive release in a series
of critically acclaimed, previously unheard Art Pepper recordings on the
Widow's Taste label, will be released on November 5. Laurie Pepper began her
company in 2006 in order, she said, to unearth previously unreleased Art and
share it with his loyal and very grateful fans.
This
1976 concert dates from the exhilarating early days of the alto saxophonist's
last comeback. "I thought it was time to focus on the music Art made with
some of his alternate sidemen," says Laurie. "I also chose it because
I listened to the first track, 'Caravan,' and it knocked me out. I knew it had
to be heard."
Recorded
(anonymously) from the soundboard during a Labor Day jazz festival at the Paul
Masson Winery, in Saratoga, California, this set features Art's Northern
California band. He'd first encountered them in 1974 at Pete Douglas's Beach
House -- aka Bach Dancing and Dynamite -- up in Half Moon Bay. He fell in love
at once with pianist Smith Dobson (pictured below), a jazz educator and local
performer who had worked with almost every jazz star who came through The
Reunion in San Francisco and other Northern California venues. Art worked with
him quite a few times and talked about taking him on the road. (Listen to Art's
heartfelt little speech right after they play "Rainy Day.") The other
band members were regulars Smith worked with: Jim Nichols on bass and young
Brad Bilhorn on drums.
Smith Dobson This recording was made on the
last day of a three-day gig, so the band was tight and relaxed. Art began the
set with the aforementioned "Caravan," which seems, despite its
quaintly Oriental or Saharan references, absolutely hurtling through a Latin
landscape. That's followed by one of Art's most beautiful and idiosyncratic
originals, "Ophelia." Written for Art's drug addicted second wife,
it's a tune that is, by turns, tender, swinging, wildly raging, and finally as
fresh and pretty as the morning after a storm. The third tune, "Here's
That Rainy Day," is a classic ballad Art played frequently in those days
-- during which he was still earning part of his living working
"casuals," Bar Mitzvahs, and weddings. It was a regularly included
standard at those functions, and Art loved to play it. Ballads were his forte,
after all, and this time it moves him more than usual. You can hear his voice
break as he singles out Smith Dobson's solo.
If
"Rainy Day" is heavenly, the next track is earthy. At casuals Art
played "Ode to Billie Joe" and "Watermelon Man" for dancing
and enjoyed that tremendously. "What Laurie Likes," his own original,
reflects the joy he got from playing funk. But as his jazz comeback
accelerated, he succumbed to his public's perception of "jazz rock" as
too simple and passé and dropped that kind of thing from his repertoire, so we
only get to hear this funky stuff in concerts like this one, from the '70s.
Art
usually ended his sets with "Straight Life," his original, which had
become his signature. This one is as breakneck and exciting as can be. And
then, as an encore we get another Pepper signature, a slow, sweet blues
("Saratoga Blues").
Widow's
Taste Records is doing well, and Laurie hasn't come to the end of what she
thinks the public needs to hear. Her next CD release will not be entirely
"unheard." She'll respond to the pressure of the fans and put out the
complete blues and ballads set released in by Omnivore in 2011 on vinyl as
"Neon Art." She says she also wants to release a DVD of a rare Pepper
performance in Norway, but she'll have to go to a public funding source to pay
for the expensive sync licensing she'd have to deal with. At that point, she
threatens to also release on DVD her own Art Pepper Movie which, for the past
eight years, has had to take a backseat to the record company.
Web
Site: www.artpepper.net
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