Track Listing

1. Our Song
2. Here's That Rainy Day
3. That's Love
4. Winter Moon
5. When The Sun Comes Out
6. Blues In The Night
7. The Prisoner
8. Our Song
9. The Prisoner
10. Ol' Man River

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #113624 in Music
• Released on: 1991-07-01
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
Alto saxophonist Art Pepper, a link from Los Angeles' burgeoning Central Avenue jazz scene in the '40s to the post-bop ferment of the '60s, was a survivor of his own hell-bent instincts and the general chaos of the jazz milieu when he enjoyed a heartening comeback in the late '70s. Like Charlie Parker, in whose shadow he had often labored, Pepper was a brilliant, often furious improvisor with a sentimental streak expressed in his fragile, moving ballads. This autumnal album fulfilled a desire shared with Bird--to set the smoky, elegiac timbre of Pepper's most carefully shaped lines against the clean foil of strings. 1980's Winter Moon establishes and sustains a middle-of-the- night atmosphere by hewing strictly to moody ballads, and giving Pepper a spare but plush backdrop of strings that allow him and a smartly chosen small group to shine on a mix of originals and covers culminating in his reading of the Hoagy Carmichael title song. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

Art With Strings!!
On hearing "Our Song" after he just recorded it for this session, Art stated that he couldn't have done better than he did on that song- he couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't like it. This was a project that was dear to his heart and the whole project is above what you would normally expect from a "strings" album of a major jazz star. This recording was one of his best from his later period.

Exquisite
This is a brilliant and beautiful record. Art's sweet-and-sour tone on alto (with a surprise turn on clarinet on "Blues in the Night") assures that there aren't any slips into sentimentality. The Bill Holman arrangements ("Our Song," "When the Sun Comes Out," "Blues in the Night," and the title tune) are superior to those by Jimmy Bond, but Art is masterful, no matter whose score he's playing.

A mirror on genius
A critic once wrote of Art Pepper something to the effect that "he hasnt made a bad record". In my experience that is true. Winter Moon is a stellar collection of tunes which showcases the nearly unlimited talent of what might be described as the definitve alto sax player in jazz history. This one's a keeper which will entertain and,perhaps,enthrall the listener for years to come