Track Listing

1. Surf Ride
2. Nature Boy
3. Straight Life
4. September Song
5. Make A List (Make A Wish)
6. Long Ago And Far Away

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54515 in Music
• Released on: 1991-07-01
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
As Art Pepper readied himself to die--or further pushed himself toward the brink of death--he seemed determined to say everything possible, quickly and forthrightly. In doing so, he created an explosive ream of albums for the Galaxy Records label, most of them featuring Pepper with only the slender backing of a piano-bass-drums setup. He was all over the sessions, picking ripe old tunes and letting fly on them, spinning his silken lines into adventurous nuggets that curbed and then redirected his playing. On Straight Life and on several of the Galaxy sessions (collected in their blessed entirety on the 16-CD The Complete Galaxy Recordings), he has the rhythmic backing of Billy Higgins on drums. Like Pepper, Higgins can whisper his parts and then shout them out with clapping power. These are all tunes Pepper fans will know but they're tremendously fresh, as is their interpreter--who would die less than three years later. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews

Brilliant Music
This is one of the definitive records made by altoist Art Pepper. Eventhough Art had many personal problems, he managed to consistently produce records of a very high calibre.

The music here is either furious and up tempo (Surf Ride, Straight Life) or immensely emotional. Close the lights, sit back and listen to "Nature Boy" and "September Song". They will blow you away with emotion as Art explores and searches with his sax. If this does not move your heart then nothing will.

This is simply brilliant and passionate music which few other artists could match.

Heartbreakingly Beautiful
What everyone else has said here, I wholeheartedly endorse. This is a hauntingly beautiful album, and every real jazz fan knows this. Pepper bares his soul and breaks your heart, and everyone involved--pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Red Mitchell, drummer Billy Higgins--seems to have recognized that this session was something special: None of these great musicians has ever sounded better or more committed than they do here. This is Art's cri de coeur, his tragic lament for a wasted life, his proud determination to make amends. He reaches deep and gives us the most moving performances ever. Thank you, Art, and may your troubled soul rest in peace.

What Great Jazz Is All About
This is a great album, really deep and heartfelt, like everything Art Pepper did. The other soloists--Flanagan, Mitchell, Higgins--are just as great as Pepper, really subtle and responsive. The tracks "Nature Boy" and "September Song" are particularly touching--not stale old standards, but transmuted into something profound. It's like hearing them for the first time. I love this album.