Art Pepper's "Surf Ride" Catches a New Wave
Craft Dives Deep into Savoy Records
Art Pepper’s music is not typically described as an acquired taste. For many, his melodic cool jazz compositions and brilliant alto sax solos are some of the most easily accessible jazz recordings that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century.
Yet, Pepper’s playing is the opposite of smooth jazz. It is emotional heartfelt stuff from the school of hard knocks. One reading of his autobiography “Straight Life” will convince you of that.
Born in southern California to a merchant seaman and a runaway mother, both alcoholics, he was raised by his paternal grandmother. Starting on clarinet at age 9 and switching to alto sax at 13, he went from playing on the streets to gigging at the Surf Club in L.A.
He started out playing with Lester Young’s brother Lee, then joined Benny Carter. He spent even more time with Stan Kenton, where he was first recorded on Capitol Records in the ‘40s.
Pepper would also team up with Chet Baker at World Pacific Records to produce such great records as Playboys, reissued as Pictures of Heath. Both artists became founders of the West Coast Jazz movement, along with Shorty Rogers, Gerry Mulligan, Shelly Manne, and others.
Perhaps most notably, Pepper was recorded on some of the best sounding jazz albums from Contemporary Records in the late ‘50s. These included an all-star cast of musicians from the Miles Davis band. On Art Pepper meets The Rhythm Section, he exhibited extreme grace under pressure to dig deep into his reservoir of unique creativity and let his inventive improvising shine in daring instantaneous compositions.
Without exception, all his LPs with Contemporary sound amazing (see this Tracking Angle review).
The album reviewed here, Surf Ride, was a compilation of Pepper’s first outings as a band leader. Released on the Savoy label in 1956, it is essentially a 12” LP compiled from earlier releases on the now-extinct Discovery Records label.
These Discovery records were first released as 45s but soon complied on two 10” discs titled Art Pepper DL 3019 and Art Pepper Quintet DL 3023. For the 12” release the tapes were remastered by Rudy Van Gelder, and it was felt that advances in pressing technology provided the sessions with sonic enhancements that were not previously possible. All songs were arranged by Pepper, and all but one song on Surf Ride was co-written with his publisher Planemar Music Co.
Unfortunately, as rare and expensive as the original 1956 12” Savoy LP has become, it is never going to be an audiophile recording, which may account for its limited release in the past 75 years. Craft Recordings described their Surf Ride reissue this way, “Be prepared, this mono recording is not high fidelity in the sense of what we are used to in jazz recordings from the ‘60s to today. Yet, it remains an important recording that is both faithful and fascinating for any Art Pepper fan.”
As with their other jazz reissues, Craft Recordings enlisted Kevin Gray at Cohearent Studios to use his all-analog mastering on the original tapes. The result is a flat, quiet pressing that offers an unvarnished look back at the beginnings of Art Pepper’s legacy.
Upon playing side 1 of my 180-gram Craft LP pressed at RTI, I confirmed that it was easy to discern the fundamentals of Pepper’s style of blowing with good body and richness of tone. However, the intricacies of the individual backing instruments seemed lacking in resolution. This was most notable on the opening track “Tickle Toes” where the piano sounded boxed in. The bass was also rendered less distinctly than I would have wished, and the drums seemed buried in the mix.
By the second track, “Chili Pepper”, the drums and bass sound more resolved, and by the third song, titled “Susie the Poodle”, the pacing of the band had gelled to provide a swinging portrayal with good definition. This music is a mixture of experimental bebop and elements of Pepper’s style of West Coast Jazz.
The first three songs feature Russ Freeman on piano, Bob Whitlock from the Gerry Mulligan Quartet on bass, and Bobby White on drums. Freeman was part of the Lighthouse All Stars and had a great rapport with Pepper.
The last three songs benefit from Pepper’s well-known rhythm section from the Surf Club with pianist Hampton Hawes, bassist Joe Mondrago, and drummer Larry Bunker. This session also seems to get a bump in audio presentation and includes the rousing “Holiday Flight” and the title track, “Surf Ride”.
This vibe continues onto Side 2, with a new crew joining Bunker on drums. Jack Montrose plays tenor sax, blending well with Pepper on alto. Claude Williamson and Monte Budwing fill in on piano and bass respectively. Pepper would later say, “Jack Montrose was one of the few horn players besides Wayne Marsh I ever found I could play freely with.”
These tracks, along with several outtakes, were later released on Savoy, including alternate takes, as a 1977 two-fer album titled Discoveries.
Unfortunately, Pepper’s recording sessions suffered for the next two years, as he was in prison on heroin charges. His career would be similarly interrupted three more times, before he finally chose the straight life in the early ‘70s. Despite the condition of Peppers’s life, he rose to produce some of the most uniformly excellent jazz improvisations on a consistent basis. He passed away from a stroke in 1982 at age 56.
The arguably kitschy cover art by Harvey Ragsdale (I think it’s perfect for the time) is well reproduced on a Stoughton Tip-On jacket. And despite this album’s minor audio flaws, Surf Ride offers a rare glimpse into a time when an original talent was emerging as not only a gifted soloist but a thematic band leader. Hop on, it’s a fun ride.
Note: I do not have an original Savoy LP of Surf Ride on hand to compare. See Michael Fremer's insight for the original LP’s presentation.
M.F. chimes in: "No doubt this is not a "high fidelity" record in the modern sense and Randy Wells's description of the other instruments sounding as background is of course also how the original sounds, but Pepper's upfront sax is cleanly rendered and as Wells points out some tracks are better than others. I'm most reminded of many late 40s-early 50s Charlie Parker records. From a boxier sounding recorded time, but if you're in it for the music, you'd be happy to listen to the original I'm playing as I type this, and no doubt the same is true of the new Craft reissue (if not more so). Just don't expect Meets the Rhythm Section and you won't be disappointed".
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