Art Pepper - Hollywood All Star Sessions

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Free Music Notes for Hollywood All Star Sessions

Free Music Review: Maybe he IS Roy Hobbs after all.
Hit: 5 Stars

These five extraordinary CD's capture the altoist in peak form in five different contexts, each swinging from start to finish and each featuring non-stop light and heat from one of jazz' most creative overachievers. During the middle of "Wee," taken at a torrid tempo on Disc 3, Pepper does something unexpected: he reverts to the conventional, proving he had chops sufficient to outpace the very best Bird disciple of them all. Sonny Stitt is his sparring mate. Pepper has just finished one of his jagged, angular solos, emitting brief bursts of brilliance, taking stabs at the overtone series, leaving shards of crystalized emotions in his choppy wake. Expressive and communicative, but certainly no proof of his command of either the horn or the complex syntax of bebop. Then Stitt follows with smooth, logical and assured Bird-like lines, spitting them out with consummate albeit formulaic ease. Apparently that was enough for Pepper, who takes after Stitt, exhibiting the killer instinct of a competitor who's about to humiliate the rival on the latter's own turf. Pepper's note choices, velocity, articulations, energy, and even fluency are sufficient not only to smoke Sonny but to expose his own former elliptical approach to improvisation as the "ruse" of a creator who under most circumstances will go the extra mile to avoid anything resembling a cliche, a familiar lick, a glib formula.

The man was not only the most moving alto saxophonist of them all but indeed may very well have been the best.

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