Alto saxophonist Art Pepper is well represented in Craft Recordings’ Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds Series. Originally released in 1960, Gettin’ Together is available in a fresh 180 gram vinyl edition on October 11. It’s the second of three Pepper LPs landing in the store bins across 2024, and if not his most lauded studio date, the contributions of pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb, and trumpeter Conte Condoli elevate the whole, along with Pepper, who is up to his usual high standard throughout.
The most celebrated album in Art Pepper’s discography remains the first one he cut for the Contemporary label, Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, which was released in 1957 with Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums, a triumvirate highly regarded at the time of the album’s recording (with no loss of esteem today) for their association with trumpeter Miles Davis.
Pepper first came to prominence in the big band of Stan Kenton, a gig that began in the early 1940s. With the exception of WWII military service, Pepper remained with Kenton through the beginning of the following decade. During this stretch Pepper contributed to some of the progressive bandleader most ambitious albums.
Although Pepper’s profile continued to rise through a handful of LPs released as leader or co-leader in the mid-’50s, it was Meets the Rhythm Section that vaulted him to the forefront of the era’s jazz scene and cemented his name into the canon. Rest assured that any serious list of the essential jazz recordings will include Meets the Rhythm Section, and rightly so.
But the vast majority of Pepper’s output was yet to come, and while drug addiction resulted in a life of tumult, the recordings on which his musical reputation rests were remarkably consistent. His second LP for Contemporary was Art Pepper + Eleven – Modern Jazz Classics, released in 1959 with the expanded lineup tackling a dozen compositions sourced from the bop era (meaning no pop standards) with arrangements from fellow West Coaster Marty Paich (Pepper also plays tenor sax and clarinet).
Reissued by Craft Recordings in 2022, Art Pepper + Eleven is about as solid a follow-up to Meets the Rhythm Section as one could reasonably ask for; it certainly bypasses its predecessor in terms of ambition. And so, Gettin’ Together might seem like a bit of a calculated backslide, given that it teamed Pepper with the rhythm section subsequently solidified by Davis in ’58, a trio that is heard most famously on the Kind of Blue selection “Freddie Freeloader” (Bill Evans replaces Kelly for the rest of that original release) but also in full on the Davis set Someday My Prince Will Come.
The contribution of Conte Condoli, a fellow graduate of Kenton’s band, is the most obvious difference (he lays out for three tracks), but there’s also less reliance on standards. Gettin’ Together opens with a fine take of “Whims of Chambers,” a composition from the bassist (previously heard as the title track on Chambers’ 1957 LP for Blue Note) and follows it with the sprightly “Bijou the Poodle,” one of three Pepper originals on the album.
The other Pepper tunes, “Diane” and the title track, round out side two. “Diane” joins with “Why Are We Afraid,” an André Previn piece (released the same year by MGM on the soundtrack album for the film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s novel The Subterraneans) in productively exploring the down-tempo end of spectrum. Named after Pepper’s second wife, “Diane” hits that balladic sweet spot, while “Why Are We Afraid” has a mediative air about it.
“Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” and Monk’s “Rhythm-A-Ning” are both sharp cookers that round out the album’s sequence. They lend intensity to a program that’s just a bit more relaxed than the proving ground of Meets the Rhythm Section. Not that Pepper was ever off his game in the studio or on the bandstand. His final comeback brought on a sustained flow of productivity (numerous releases from this period are covered in this column) that ensured Pepper’s stature as a survivor, not a tragic figure. Gettin’ Together is another worthy example of his artistry.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
