Oh, how I love Art Pepper. His playing style with that touch of melancholy mixed with lyrical and technical brilliance is truly a joy to behold. I have built a little Art Pepper collection already, with wonderful gems that I enjoy a lot. The only problem with collecting original Pepper LP's is that a lot of his early work is on labels such as this, where maybe the quality of the pressings and the vinyl, or the mix itself isn't quite like, let's say a Blue Note. But I dig the sound nonetheless. I dig collecting these rare, smaller label stuff.
This album is quite nice with some very good music. The copy I've got is in good nick too, and I feel the urge to put it on right now. This is Discovery 3023, and there's also a 3019 with Pepper. These two 10" records where later put together in 12" format and became the album "Surf Ride" (MG 12089) released on Savoy. I'd of course rather have these two Discovery LP's as they are the original pressings. I don't have the other one as of yet, but I'm looking.
I'm looking at building a small 10" collection with some choice pieces. There's a lot of stuff that was originally released on 10" records, and therefore I need to collect some of those gems in the future. If the music was originally pressed on a 10" LP, then that's what I'll try to get. There are some examples, for example "Afro Cuban" by Kenny Dorham where the original tunes were released on a 10" and later, together with some other tunes, released on a 12" Blue Note. The additional tunes on the 12" doesn't quite match together with the stuff on the 10" I think, so in that case, even if the 12" is rare and appealing, I'd rather have the 10".
If you're looking for a great piece of early Art Pepper in top form, then this 10" on Discovery could be the one for you. Look it up and enjoy the smooth, cool brand of jazz that Pepper perfected in the 50's. And during that decade I think of driving a Chevy with the top rolled down, in the Californian sun, with some high, faded palm trees swaying a bit in the breeze and the world is colored a hazy, burnt yellow with turqoise spots here and there, like on some old, trashed polaroid image. The cigarette slowly burning between lazy fingers and you just feel the jazz music caressing the soul and mind.
More poetry coming up.. stay tuned.