Art Pepper Quintet - Smack Up (1960) CD Rip

Tracklist

01 - Smack Up
02 - Las Cuevas de Mario
03 - A Bit of Basie
04 - How Can You Lose
05 - Maybe Next Year
06 - Tears Inside
07 - Solid Citizens [Take 33]
08 - Solid Citizens [Take 37]

Recorded at Contemporary Records in Los Angeles; October 24-25, 1960.

personnel :

Art Pepper — alto saxophone
Jack Sheldon — trumpet
Pete Jolly — piano
Jimmy Bond — bass
Frank Butler — drums

The title of this recording, Smack Up is ironic and inadvertently truthful. Within a short period, Art Pepper would begin spending many years in jail due to his heroin addiction; this was his next-to-last album from that period. Despite the bleak future, the great altoist (who never seemed to make an uninspired record during his unstable life) is in excellent form in a quintet with trumpeter Jack Sheldon, pianist Pete Jolly, bassist Jimmy Bond, and drummer Frank Butler. Highlights of this fine album include Harold Land's title cut, the five/four blues "Las Cuevas de Mario," and Ornette Coleman's "Tears Inside." [Some reissues add two takes of the otherwise unknown "Solid Citizens."] ~Scott Yanow