Classic Recordings, Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section

Art Pepper isn’t exactly known for having an easy ride during his lifetime as a jazz saxophonist. Primarily known as one of the best alto players on the West Coast jazz scene - though he did occasionally pick up the tenor and clarinet - Pepper came to prominence as a member of Sten Kenton’s big band, which he joined at only 17 years of age. Up until that point, Pepper had had something of a troubled upbringing - both of his parents were alcoholics with violent tendencies, and he was sent to live with his grandparents at an early age as a result. He found an outlet in music, starting with the clarinet at age 9 before switching to the alto sax at 13, at which point he immediately took to the streets and started jamming throughout the Black nightclub district of LA, Central Avenue. It was here he started playing with Benny Carter, which led to him landing a spot in the Stan Kenton Orchestra. He was a regular in Kenton’s group until being drafted in 1943, but promptly returned to LA after the war to rejoin the Kenton Orchestra, and can be heard on the group’s recordings Innovations in Modern Music and Stan Kenton Presents. It was in the early ‘50s that Pepper began breaking away from orchestras to lead his own bands, making his first handful of recordings on a variety of jazz labels including Savoy and Pacific.

Flash forward a few years and we have 1957’s Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, recorded under less-than-ideal circumstances for the saxophonist. For one thing, Pepper forgot he was even due to record an album until the morning of the session, and not only that, he was going to be recording with the rhythm section of Miles Davis’s current quintet - pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones, the eponymous ‘Rhythm Section’ in question. Pepper himself held great admiration for this group of musicians, so the pressure was on, but to top it all off, neither himself nor his sax were in terribly good states; his alto was in a poor state of repair having hardly been played, and Pepper himself was in a bout of difficulties due to his heroin addiction. There are also claims that Pepper hadn’t so much as touched his sax for a while at the time of recording - the album’s liner notes and Pepper’s own autobiography Straight Life seem to be split on whether it was two weeks or six months - but the same autobiography also has Pepper down as having recorded as recently as five days before the Rhythm Section sessions, so the historical accuracy of this is a little muddy. Point being, Art Pepper was hardly in the best shape for stepping into the recording studio that morning.

Despite this, Pepper was in the presence of some of his musical heroes, and he certainly doesn’t phone it in on the recording. The recording itself captures the intersection of the cool school of the West Coast - Pepper’s domain - and the fiery bebop of the New York players, and all parties involved pull off some excellent performances throughout the record. The quartet take on some classic standards like Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Birks’ Works’, as well as a couple of spontaneously-written originals like Pepper and Paul Chambers’s ‘Waltz Me Blues’, or Pepper and Red Garland’s ‘Red Pepper Blues’. The Art Pepper original ‘Straight Life’ injects some energy into the set, a comparatively high-energy tune that goes pretty hard for the West Coast.

Art Pepper’s music career was routinely interrupted throughout his lifetime by bouts of heroin addiction - and occasional jail time stemming from it - but had numerous productive ‘comeback’ periods of music-making, even joining Buddy Rich’s Big Band from ‘68-’69. Thanks to his success with therapy in the mid-’70s, he managed to be fairly prolific during the final decade of his life, including tours in both Europe and Japan, as well as numerous albums. The autobiography co-written by his wife Laurie Pepper, ‘Straight Life’, goes into his tumultuous life even further, compiled from years of interviews conducted by his wife, and is well worth your time even if it doesn’t make for the easiest read. Even despite his personal troubles Art Pepper was a remarkably consistent saxophonist, and ’The Rhythm Section is a prime example of him managing to come out with a brilliant performance in less-than-ideal circumstances.