Art Pepper - Intensity
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Art PepperEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1991-07-01
Music Label: Ojc
Soundtracks:
- I Can't Believe That You're in Love With Me
- I Love You
- Come Rain or Come Shine
- Long Ago (And Far Away)
- Gone With the Wind
- I Wished on the Moon
- Too Close for Comfort
- Five Points [*]
Free Music Notes for Intensity
Free Music Review: End of chapter one
Hit: 5 Stars
This album marks the famous divide in Pepper's career. It was recorded in 1960 just after Pepper was busted for narcotics & before he was sent to San Quentin for 6 years (read his autobiography _Straight Life_ for a gripping account); Les Koenig, owner of Contemporary Records, raised some bail & quickly arranged this session. (Pepper notes in his book that because this was the last album he recorded for Contemporary, Koenig stockpiled it for a few years--it was released in 1963.) The album features the ubiquitous West Coast rhythm section of Jimmy Bond on bass & the redoubtable Frank Butler on drums--they had already featured on his previous album, _Smack Up_, recorded only a month before. This time, however, the pianist was Dolo Coker, a little-celebrated pianist who proves entirely compatible. (Coker--real first name Charles--later reunited with Butler & Pepper for Coker's 1978 Xanadu album _California Hard_.) The material, because of the circumstances, was easily-picked standards, many of which Pepper had recorded before; yet the date is anything but routine. Pepper was a "West Coast player", a term which often carries a subtext of derision--of overly polite, too-slick jazz, lacking the intensity & drive of the music coming out of Chicago, New York, &c. Such stereotypes are easily demolished: Pepper was, in fact, one of the most convincing players of the blues of his generation. Only the bonus track here, "Five Points", is a blues, but the coloration of the blues informs all the tracks. The music combines great urgency with unexpected poise: Pepper's solos are admirably well-constructed. The highlight of the album is probably its one ballad, "Come Rain or Come Shine"; like all the album, it comes across as more wistful than (as one might expect given the circumstances) anguished, though Pepper's tone is keening & slightly rough-edged despite its elegance.A word for Frank Butler, one of the great drummers of the midcentury who deserved a lot more recognition than he got. He has the kind of unfettered feel one associates with Philly Joe Jones, but his approach is highly individual--his fills aren't like anyone else's in the period. Butler is perhaps most familiar to jazz fans from cameos in the Miles Davis & John Coltrane discographies (he played on _Seven Steps to Heaven_ & in some of Coltrane's 1965 groups); he's also well-featured on many Contemporary discs from the period, notably Curtis Counce's.
This disc is one of Pepper's best. Pepper's work from 1956-60 for Contemporary is probably his most important; any serious jazz fan should have at least a few of these sessions, & I'd name _Intensity_ & _Meets the Rhythm Section_ as the ones to go for first.
Intensity Poster
The complete original Art Pepper album Intensity (Contemporary S7607), recorded in a quartet format. This was Pepper's last album as a leader before entering prison to serve his longest drug-related sentence. (After a short session as a sidemen in January 1961 he entered San Quentin and wouldn't record again until May 1964. He wouldn't lead another studio date until 1973.) As a bonus, a complete studio session made three years before Intensity. Although the album was recorded in a quintet setting, Pepper is still the only horn.Jazz Music CDs
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