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I really loved it !!!
Art Pepper & Sonny Stitt
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A total mismatch. Art Pepper isn't even in the same league as Stitt.
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And they don't share the same underpants !
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Ha,ha, ha! Spot on! Don't get me wrong, I have some of Art Pepper's music I really enjoy, but next to Stitt, well I already said it ....
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But be honest, that's a great performance from Art Pepper, he does wonderfully the job.
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It comes from your computer or connection.
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There's a great passage in Art Pepper's autobiography in which he writes about jamming with Stitt. It's been a long time since I read that book, which is one of the best autobiographies ever, but I think this was the final chapter. Pepper describes how Stitt shows up at his gig, carrying his alto and ready to "do battle," and how Stitt plays his usual incredibly fast, bebop virtuoso stuff, and then Pepper has to try to follow that. But Pepper succeeds, because he doesn't try to out-bebop Sonny Stitt, he plays it his way, his own style, and it works.
It's a great book, and there's a great lesson in there somewhere.
It's a great book, and there's a great lesson in there somewhere.
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I give him credit for feeling sax enough to play with Sonny. When I think of Art Pepper I think of his recording of "You go to my head".
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Stitt sounds different in these clips than normal. Less strident, more warm, less brilliant. Checking the picture in more detail I see that he uses an HR mouthpiece here, not his trusted metal Florida STM.
Still like his more adventurous runs in the solo's (knowing that it's partly to hide that he can't go as fast over the changes as Stitt).
1. Use another internet browser (Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome
2. Watch the video directly on YouTube (by clicking within 10 seconds on the YouTube text at the right bottom of the embedded window)
Not a total mismatch IMO, but Art is indeed not in top form here (technically and sound wise) and Stitt is a tough guy to battle with anyhow!
Still like his more adventurous runs in the solo's (knowing that it's partly to hide that he can't go as fast over the changes as Stitt).
Turf, this can happen if you use an old version of Microsoft IE. Two ways to resolve this:
1. Use another internet browser (Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome
2. Watch the video directly on YouTube (by clicking within 10 seconds on the YouTube text at the right bottom of the embedded window)
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The review below contains the quote from Straight Life referred to, when Pepper was playing the Black Hawk in San Francisco and Stitt asked to sit in.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/art-pe...art- pepper-by-c-michael-bailey.php?width=834
I can't get any of the videos to work, so I'm still in the dark about these sessions with Stitt, I see that vol 3 is Art Pepper with Lee Konitz which I'd like to hear.
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/art-pe...art- pepper-by-c-michael-bailey.php?width=834
I can't get any of the videos to work, so I'm still in the dark about these sessions with Stitt, I see that vol 3 is Art Pepper with Lee Konitz which I'd like to hear.
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Art is not sounding good here, to me. He's fighting the mpc/reed and its tough for me to listen to, really.
Everyone likes different things, and this is just my opinion.
Art Pepper Meets the rhythm section is one of the greatest albums EVER made, in my opinion, and really shows Art in all his glory.
Here's another where I REALLY dig his vibe:
Thats the stuff that really moves me. His later stuff just didn't gel with me nearly as much and sometimes not at all.... Totally different sound and playing concept.
Sonny sounds great in the audios posted.
Thanks for sharing.
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I tend to agree with you about Art Pepper's later stuff, he did say that he became obsessed with trying to play like Coltrane, that it almost destroyed him and he then struggled to recover his own voice.
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Hi Tony,
He went through so much stuff and I know that took a HUGE toll on him.
I just liked the earlier stuff so much more because it was so natural to me.
It just felt like it was 100% Art. The sound, the phrasing, and the way he played, was just WAY more up my alley for sure.
The later stuff went another direction...cool for some, but not nearly as appealing to me.
He went through so much stuff and I know that took a HUGE toll on him.
I just liked the earlier stuff so much more because it was so natural to me.
It just felt like it was 100% Art. The sound, the phrasing, and the way he played, was just WAY more up my alley for sure.
The later stuff went another direction...cool for some, but not nearly as appealing to me.
I really like some of the stuff Art did in the '60s after his first incarceration stints. He was clearly influenced by guys like Ornette and Eric Dolphy, and there was a rawness to his playing that I preferred over the old cool school stuff. His health got the better of him in the later sessions, but even so, some his stuff with the quartet with George Cables on the Galaxy label was really good. I don't like making the comparison to Stitt, who was a virtuoso. Pepper became one of those inside-out guys long before people were talking about playing inside-out. By the way, I agree that on these sessions Pepper does not sound that great.
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I did add the real YouTube links and changed the embedding in post #1.
Maybe you can see them now.
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Thanks, in fact I've just discovered that there are 6 volumes of the "Art Pepper presents West Coast sessions" albums on Spotify, vol 1 Sonny Stitt, vol 3 Lee Konitz, so I'll have a listen later.
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OK, so just to be clear. I have quite a few Art Pepper albums. This West Coast Sessions with Stitt included. I have also read his biography Straight Life. Pepper was dealt a rough hand from the beginning and accompanied by an addictive personality lead to a tough life, which is what really shapes the outcome of what a lot of artists produce. Charlie Parker is quoted as saying " If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn". I think the same can be said about Stitt as well as he traveled the same road.
My comment was solely based on the technical aspect of the participants. Stitt, as usual provides an endless flow of musical ideas from the onset of his solo, blowing freely through the changes right up to the end. While Pepper seems to hunt and peck through each measure of music as though searching for the next phrase to fit the changes. Pepper plays like this on a lot of his albums not just this one, and there's nothing wrong with it, leaving space and looking for "new" ideas as opposed to playing a bunch of cliches, which truth be told Stitt did a lot of.
Personally, I was just giving a critique, as I couldn't even carry the "case" for either one of these gentlemen...
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Well, for me it sounds very good, very authentic and fresh, the goal wasn't to play like Sonny Stitt.
I remember one day, I said to someone I was cool and didn't dare to learn some bebop things, and the guy said, they were all boppers, except maybe Paul Desmond.
But and the end if you told some "cool" players to play bebop, they were able to do it and maybe more.
I remember one day, I said to someone I was cool and didn't dare to learn some bebop things, and the guy said, they were all boppers, except maybe Paul Desmond.
But and the end if you told some "cool" players to play bebop, they were able to do it and maybe more.
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