Art Pepper spent a long time with the Stan Kenton big band in the 1940s and early 1950s, but he still favoured smaller groups. “I enjoy playing with a big band occasionally, but it is too restricting; you really don’t get a chance to stretch out and do what you want to do.” Hence the run of famous small-group albums he released in the 1950s.
Art Pepper + Eleven breaks this trend, as it neither big-band nor small-group outing. Pepper had worked occasionally with pianist and arranger Marty Paich since 1953, but this set is the only one with Pepper as leader. Although mainly sticking to alto and occasionally tenor, on Anthology and Bernie’s Tune he plays a surprisingly sensitive clarinet, an instrument he rarely recorded on.
Pepper and Paich collaborated on selecting the 12 songs on the album. Paich remarks “We treated them with a great deal of respect … with these jazz standards you don’t have to alter and extend the chords and make other changes for jazz purposes.” He also wanted to give Pepper a different kind of inspiration than he’d been used to, with just a quartet behind him: “I thought this setting would spur him to play differently than usual. And it did.”
Right from the off, Pepper turns in a much more extroverted solo on Move than Miles Davis had deployed on his version with the 1949 nonet, his own little big band. Likewise, on Dizzy Gillespie’s Groovin’ High, the feeling of the writing is quite different than usual on that song, Pepper more loping than running. And again, on Opus De Funk, Pepper doesn’t strain to be funky, but makes his own way, supported by apt commentary from the band.
Paich’s arrangement of Round Midnight gives Pepper free space for his innate ability to get inside a ballad. “Here I get the feeling that he’s really crying,” said Paich. Song by song, Paich consistently gets the best out of Pepper, notably maintaining the feeling of a small band on, for example, Donna Lee while judiciously calling on the larger resources of the ensemble to support Pepper. Nowhere do the 11 crowd out the one, rather acting as a supportive cushion throughout with an ability to make their own mark when required. Throughout there is a buoyancy and lightness of touch that delights the ear.
In addition to the featured album are seven bonus tracks (4) featuring singers, all but one of which – The Man I Love, with Helyne Stewart – were also arranged and orchestrated by Paich. The seven are the only songs on their respective albums that feature Pepper as a soloist, but listen out for the delights of Ben Webster, André Previn, Barney Kessel and Shelly Manne buried in the ranks of Helen Humes’s St Louis Blues.
Discography
(3) Move; (2) Groovin’ High; (1) Opus De Funk; Round Midnight; (3) Four Brothers; (2) Shaw Nuff; (3) Bernie’s Tune; (1) Walking Shoes; (2) Anthropology; (1) Airegin; (3) Walkin’; (2) Donna Lee; (3) Walkin’ (2x alt); (2) Donna Lee (alt); (4) It’s All Right By Me; Let There Be Love; My Heart Belongs To Daddy; So In Love; St Louis Blues; The Man I Love; Blues In The Night (75.38)
Pepper (as, ts, cl); Dick Nash (tb); Bob Enevoldsen (vtb, ts); Vince DeRosa (frh); Med Flory (bar); Russ Freeman (p); Joe Mondragon (b); Mel Lewis (d); Marty Paich (arr, con); orchestra, plus
(1) Pete Candoli, Jack Sheldon (t); Herb Geller (as); Bill Perkins (ts). Los Angeles, 14 March 1959.
(2) Al Porcino, Sheldon (t); Bud Shank (as); Perkins (ts). Los Angeles, 28 March 1959.
(3) Porcino, Sheldon (t); Charlie Kennedy (as); Richie Kamuca (ts). Los Angeles, 12 May 1959.
(4) Bonus tracks with Jessie Belvin, Joanie Sommers, Helen Humes, Helyne Stewart (v). Hollywood, 8 December 1958, June 1959, 16 December 1959. Los Angeles, 6–7 September, 20 January 1961.
Poll Winners Records 27219 CD
