Art Pepper Zoot Sims Art n Zoot
By Michael Ullman
Whether playing together or autonomously, on this 1981 recording the two saxophonists couldn't audio more gracefully inspired or more than compatible.
Art Pepper and Zoot Sims, Jam Session (bandcamp)
Once, when I was interviewing Art Pepper just after he had published his autobiography (Straight Life), the alto saxophonist recalled a club date that had been going smoothly — until the unexpected arrival, saxophone in hand, of Sonny Stitt, a musician who needed contest in society to play his best. Stitt proceeded to stroll on stage and he played, at Pepper's gauge, 50 choruses of blues. There seemed to exist nothing left to play. As he spoke, Pepper visibly tightened upwards — his entire body seemed to accept knotted up. He was gazing anxiously dorsum at a confrontation that had been a matter of life or death. I asked the saxophonist what he did that night. His answer was simple: Stitt had played everything else, so Pepper played himself.
I hear no such cardinal tension in this sweetly swinging recording, made at UCLA in 1981, featuring Pepper and tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims. Whether playing together or apart, the two musicians couldn't sound more gracefully inspired or more compatible. The live recording is a fleck mysterious. Almost of the tracks feature the marvelous pianist (and onetime vibes thespian) Victor Feldman, who afterward a career in London skipped from the East Coast to get a vital member of the L.A. jazz scene. (He played vibes with Woody Herman. He'due south also on half of Miles Davis's 1963 Seven Steps to Heaven session, on which he played "Baby Won't You Delight Come up Habitation" and "Basin Street Dejection.") Five of the 6 numbers on Jam Sessioncharacteristic a rhythm section that includes two other stars: Ray Brown on bass and Baton Higgins on drums. (You tin can profitably spend much of your time appreciating Brown's bass lines.) That appears to be the cadre group. Simply guitarist Barney Kessel joins the band on "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Broadway." Maybe this was essentially a Zoot Sims grouping. Pepper lays out on three tracks (out of half dozen) but is featured on what was a standard for him — "Over the Rainbow," where Charlie Haden is the bassist.
I am sure the six tunes here were unrehearsed. (I can't imagine Sims rehearsing.) Perhaps only the opener, Denzil Best's bop standard "Wee," and the closer, an improvised blues labeled "Breakdown Blues," could properly exist called jam sessions. Sims and Pepper play the theme of "Wee (Allen'south Alley)" in a fast unison earlier they improvise together on the bridge. Then Sims takes off on a typically brightly swinging solo. At beginning Feldman lays out and one tin listen to the way Sims bounces off of Brownish's lines. It's Sims at (nearly) his best, including the occasional honks and gritty growls. Pepper takes over, sounding (of form) more intense every bit he engages these familiar rhythm changes. Momentarily Pepper brings in some of the swirling lines he picked upward from Coltrane. Feldman's light-fingered, witty solo follows, his way reminding this listener that he is too a vibes thespian.
Information technology is Feldman who introduces "Breakdown Blues."Sims and Pepper then play a chorus on which they improvise together, or against each other. And so Sims takes a proper solo. Pepper's tone is more tart here: he nearly barks out some phrases. When Feldman lays out we tin again hear Chocolate-brown and Higgins do what they do best. To begin his solo, Feldman plays a chorus of mostly block chords, every bit if some modesty will assist a transition from Pepper'southward intensity. Amusingly, Brown begins his solo by quoting "Encounter Come across Rider" while Higgins plays a march rhythm behind him. Chocolate-brown'due south solo is a jewel, and it is well recorded so we can wallow in his uniquely beautiful tone. The melody ends with another few choruses of group improvisation.
I accept one-half a dozen Pepper versions of "Over the Rainbow." The one on Jam Session begins with a probing, unaccompanied solo by Pepper, after which he seems to float slowly into the tune, the way people fall into feather beds in ads. Withal to my ears he is never nakedly sentimental. Sims's ballad feature is a more unusual selection. "In the Middle of a Kiss" is a vocal that singer Connie Boswell recorded in the '30s, and pianist Art Tatum in 1935, but which Sims fabricated his own, recording it repeatedly in the '70s long after everyone else forgot it. Sims approaches the tune with a kind of exaggerated swing: on each held note he plays a wide vibrato not heard elsewhere. I imagine him listening in his head to Boswell as he plays. The other tunes are the familiar "Broadway" and the inevitable "Girl From Ipanema." The principals play too every bit e'er on these tracks, which to me means they are playing as well in their style every bit just about anybody. The invaluable bonuses: solos by Kessel, Brownish, and Feldman … and the brush work of Higgins.
Michael Ullman studied classical clarinet and was educated at Harvard, the Academy of Chicago, and the U. of Michigan, from which he received a PhD in English language. The writer or co-author of two books on jazz, he has written on jazz and classical music for the Atlantic Monthly, New Commonwealth, High Fidelity, Stereophile, Boston Phoenix, Boston Globe, and other venues. His articles on Dickens, Joyce, Kipling, and others have appeared in academic journals. For over 20 years, he has written a bi-monthly jazz column for Fanfare Magazine, for which he likewise reviews classical music. At Tufts University, he teaches mostly modernist writers in the English Department and jazz and blues history in the Music Department. He plays piano desperately.
Source: https://artsfuse.org/245763/jazz-album-review-art-pepper-and-zoot-sims-a-sweetly-swinging-jam-session/
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