Labels We Love – Galaxy

Art Pepper – Straight Life

More Art Pepper

More Jazz Recordings featuring the Saxophone

This Jazz Classic boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound, or close to it, from first note to last. The two long ballads, “September Song” at over ten minutes, and “Nature Boy” at just under ten, give Art and the boys a chance to stretch out and take it to another level.

Art Pepper’s saxophone sound is just right — present, breathy and airy with clear leading edge transients. The lineup on this LP is truly stellar, especially for 1979, with the legendary Tommy Flanagan on piano, Billy Higgins on drums, and the great Red Mitchell on bass. (more…)

Art Pepper – Landscape

More of the Music of Art Pepper

  • You’ll find excellent Double Plus (A++) grades, or close to them, on this 1979 Art Pepper classic 
  • One of the few copies of Landscape to hit the site in a very long time – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • George Cables, Art’s longtime collaborator on piano, is nothing less than amazing on this record – this is the best I’ve ever heard him play
  • 4 1/2 Stars: “Altoist Art Pepper was in inspired form during this Tokyo concert. This particular LP features Pepper on memorable versions of “True Blues,” “Sometime” (during which Pepper switches to clarinet), “Landscape” and “Over the Rainbow.” Pepper’s intensity and go-for-broke style are exhilarating throughout.”

Recorded in Japan in 1979, this is a really interesting album for Art Pepper. If you know much about his body of work, you know there are a lot of stinkers in the Art Pepper catalog from this era. Acoustic Sounds released a few of them on 180 gram as a matter of fact, with their notoriously bad sound (notorious around these parts anyway). What a waste of good vinyl. (more…)