Art Pepper Quintet

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."

As a sort of follow-up to Art Pepper's matchup with Miles Davis' trio in the 1957 classic Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, Pepper utilizes Davis' sidemen on this 1960 near-classic. In addition to pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, trumpeter Conte Candoli makes the group a quintet on four of the eight numbers. This time around, rather than emphasizing standards, Pepper performs just three ("Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise," Thelonious Monk's "Rhythm-A-Ning," and "The Way You Look Tonight") and includes three originals of his own: "Diane," "Bijou the Poodle," and "Gettin' Together." The music is all very straight-ahead and bop-oriented, but as usual, Pepper brings something very personal and unique to his playing; he sounds like no one else.