Art Pepper: 'Live at the Cellar,' 1959

The new four-CD/digital Omnivore box features the alto saxophonist at his peak

Between 1954 and 1965, alto saxophonist Art Pepper served four different prison terms for heroin possession. In the days before the emergence of humane programs and medications to help addicts cope with or overcome hard-wired habits, one simply went to prison if caught with hard drugs, especially California jazz musicians. [Photo above of Art Pepper in 1959 by Roger Marshutz]

Each of Pepper’s incarcerations had a different impact on his music once released. After his first stint ended in 1956, his focus seemed sharper and there was melancholy in his sound. Later on, after 1965, Pepper would set out to restore his reputation by embracing the free-jazz abstraction and endurance of John Coltrane.

For many Pepper fans, the height of his beauty, originality and fluidity can be found on recordings between 1952 and 1954 and between 1956 and 1960. These golden years are remarkable, but all we’ve had to listen to from this period came out decades ago. Little new has surfaced and nothing live from 1959.

On Feb. 20, Omnivore Recordings released a four-CD box/digital download that’s easily the most exciting new Pepper material issued in some time. All of the tracks on Everything Happens to Me were recorded live at the Cellar jazz club in Vancouver, Canada, during Pepper’s run there in the summer of 1959. Pepper was backed by Canadians Chris Gage (piano), Tony Clitheroe (bass) and George Ursan (drums).

Produced for release by Art’s widow Laurie Pepper and Omnivore founder Cheryl Pawelski, the tapes were originally recorded by Dave Quarin, a saxophonist who managed the Cellar at the time.

The set includes six incomplete tracks due to tape running out before the songs were completed. The rest are complete or run near to completion. Laurie and Cheryl didn’t want to omit the hour of additional music just because the tracks were incomplete. Mastering engineer Michael Graves restored and unified the existing audio.

I’m a 1950s Pepper fan, and for me the 32 songs are a godsend. He’s in terrific form—his tone was buttery and heartfelt, while his execution was fleet and still imbued with West Coast optimism. He clearly was trying to resurrect his earlier reputation with the sound that made him famous.

Most of all, we get a fine sense of how superb Pepper was when heard live back then. These tracks come before subsequent arrests and imprisonment added an acidic tone to his tone as he tried to fit into the new jazz scene.

The tracks:

Disc 1

• When You’re Smiling (incomplete)

• Cherokee

• Over the Rainbow

• All the Things You Are

• Indiana (Back Home in Indiana)

• Lover Man

• Yardbird Suite

• Sweet Georgia Brown (incomplete)

Disc 2

• What Is This Thing Called Love?

• Yardbird Suite

• Band Intros

• What’s New? (incomplete)

• Holiday Flight

• Stompin’ at the Savoy

• Allen’s Alley

• These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)*

Disc 3

• Holiday Flight

• Tangerine

• The Way You Look Tonight

• Everything Happens To Me

• Bernie’s Tune

• I Surrender Dear

• Over The Rainbow

• Allen’s Alley

• Brown Gold

Disc 4

• Holiday Flight (incomplete)

• Strike Up The Band

• Somebody Loves Me

• There Will Never Be Another You (Part 1)

• There Will Never Be Another You (Part 2)

• Allen’s Alley

• Walkin’ (incomplete)

This new four-hour collection of music provides Pepper fans and jazz aficionados who are new to Pepper with a bounty of bouncy and bluesy material. It’s also the only live recordings we have of Pepper in 1959, when he was at his peak and recording studio albums as a leader and sideman.

Even more important, you get to hear the essence of what made the saxophonist special and immediately identifiable: the tug of blues and anxiety encased in a pastel hue. The juxtaposition between the two is what made Pepper singular.

Art Pepper died in 1982 at age 56.

You can buy the new set, Everything Happens to Me (Omnivore), by going here.

Here’s Everything Happens to Me…

Here’s Pepper’s superb Holiday Flight…

And here’s Tangerine. Spectacular from start to finish…