MP3 Art Pepper - The Art History Project, Vol 3

Hot, cool, sweet, swinging, passionate, funky, wild, and really really blue.

7 MP3 Songs in this album (69:12) !
Related styles: JAZZ: Mainstream Jazz, JAZZ: Afro-Cuban Jazz

People who are interested in John Coltrane Miles Davis Lester Young should consider this download.


Details:
This is disc 3 (for digital download only) of volume IV of the Unreleased Art Pepper series, a set which sums up the intensity of feeling, the wit, rage, sensuality and darking, the moans of pain and shouts of celebration of the life Art shared with us -- in his book, "Straight Life, and always in his music.

Coda: Widow's Taste is "nearly impeccable," and Art's playing on previous releases "rhapsodic, heartfelt, almost demonic, exhaustive." --Jack Chambers

New York Times, in a feature article: Widow's Taste "captures the artist at a mesmerizing peak." --Fred Kaplan

Audiophile Audition: "I have loved each of the Unreleased series, but I have to say that Vol. 3 is my favorite. Its combination of funky swinging blues combined with Art's lay-it-on-the-line blowing knocks me out. The sound is surprisingly good and kudos should go to Wayne Peet for a brilliant remastering job." --Jeff Krow

In keeping with the goals of the Widow's Taste Unreleased Art series, two-thirds of the music here has never been released before. The program begins in 1950 (Art Pepper with Stan Kenton) and concludes with tracks from a previously unreleased New York gig, featuring Stanley Cowell, George Mraz, and Ben Riley, played just a couple of months before Pepper's June 1982 death, at age 56.

Art Pepper played the most autobiographical instrumental music in the world. The 17 selections on the forthcoming Widow's Taste release, The Art History Project, describe the emotional and musical evolution of an artist as he reacted, always intensely, to the events of his own life and to the events of the music world in general.

These 3 cds are sold as a boxed set which includes a 20-page booklet filled with previously unpublished photographs as well as anecdotes, impressions, and information from her life with Art and from the book they wrote together, Straight Life.

Each disc is being offered separately -- for digital download only -- to those who prefer to obtain their music online.

Disc 3, Consummate Art: A narrative of reconciliation. In this music, most of which has never been released, Art embraces his past and his pain in music that is delicate, lively, and touching, and, at the same time, free: It rages and celebrates. The edge of desperation is still there, but Art has found a way to use it. He is again at the top of the jazz polls, respected and even adored, playing all over the world. He is "a knowing athlete, trained and poised" (Gary Giddins, Village Voice), who brought from deep inside the beauty of his own passion angst and glee and connected so unerringly with ours. He was "an architect of emotion" (John Litweiler, Chicago Sun-Times) who "played with controlled intensity, clean articulation, and a command of his instrument that make his virtuosity seem almost casual and easy" (John S. Wilson, New York Times). The disc features Stanley Cowell, George Mraz, Milcho Leviev, etc.

Check out, also: Disc 1. Pure Art is a story told by the young fellow who placed second only to Charlie Parker in the Down Beat polls, and who, by his own account, "musically, at least, had the world by the tail." That "at least" is typical Art Pepper. Nothing was ever was quite perfect enough. Nothing was ever quite right. He began to use drugs during this period, in an effort to escape the universal lack that prodded and plagued him. This disc is mostly "West Coast Jazz" with all its contrapuntal cleverness and loveliness -- though Art always gave it his own bright little edge of adrenaline so it never was lightweight. Many of the tunes are his originals. Sidemen here include Warne Marsh, Jack Sheldon, and Shorty Rogers "This music is sublime and really timeless," says Laurie.

And check out Disc 2. Hard Art consists of mostly unreleased material from a rehearsal recorded at Contemporary Studios in 1964 a few weeks after Art's first release from San Quentin. It reveals his love for Coltrane and for the new sound of jazz. Art's songs still swing and have moments of lyricism, but he uses the license given him by freer musical conventions to express the grief, anger, and alienation he felt in the midst of serving what seemed like an only-occasionally-interrupted life sentence -- doing time in jails and prisons just for using drugs.

The new set is an ideal companion piece to Art's book Straight Life and, like the other volumes in the Unreleased Art series, it is an instant collector's item. Each volume has been compiled by the partner who knew Art most completely, and in irreverent anecdotes she gives him to us whole, his music reverentially reproduced and packaged.

Laurie Pepper's Widow's Taste label was launched in 2006 in order to introduce Art to a generation who may not know how soulful jazz can be and to satisfy the blessedly insatiable desires of his knowledgeable fans. That this small record company remains in the black is thanks to those fans and to the overwhelming praise heaped on it: