Art Pepper - Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (1982 Japanese Contemporary Records LP)

Vinyl: NM
Sleeve: EX
Obi: EX

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Art Pepper - Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section | Vinyl LP - 1982 Japanese Contemporary Records (P-7563, Warner-Pioneer Corporation)

Lester Koenig ran Contemporary Records out of Los Angeles and spotted an opportunity. The Miles Davis Quintet was in town for a night at the Tiffany Club — January 19, 1957. The rhythm section, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, had a free afternoon. Koenig booked the studio and called Art Pepper. Pepper claims he heard about the session that same morning, arrived unprepared, with a saxophone in poor repair, and had never previously met any of the three musicians. The session ran five hours. Ten tracks were recorded; nine made the album. Roy DuNann engineered.

The rhythm section written into the title is the best in jazz at that particular moment — Garland's comping is authoritative and loose simultaneously, Chambers plays with extraordinary intonation and tone, Jones's ride cymbal work is among the most studied in the hard bop era. Pepper, for his part, plays above whatever difficulties surrounded the session. Two compositions were written in the room: "Red Pepper Blues" by Garland, "Waltz Me Blues" by Pepper and Chambers. Pepper's own "Straight Life" — the title he would later give his autobiography — is the album's most driven piece. "Tin Tin Deo," by Chano Pozo and Dizzy Gillespie, runs over seven minutes. "Birks Works" closes Side B hard. Between the five standards and the three originals sits "Imagination," a Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen ballad Pepper takes slowly.

This is the 1982 Japanese Contemporary Records pressing, manufactured by Warner-Pioneer Corporation, with Japanese liner notes and the Swing Journal Seal of Approval rosette on the obi.