Every month

Every month I'll post a new "taste" of Art Pepper's music as a FREE DOWNLOAD. These tastes are given away because they are "unreleasable" by virtue of the recording being cut off at beginning or end or by brief audio problems that occurred in the recording process.

THEY'RE TOO STUNNING TO HIDE AWAY IN MY FILES AS YOU'LL SOON SEE.

I'll also post occasional journal entries including updates on new releases.

Friday, August 30, 2013

SPECIAL FREEBIE FOR ART'S BIRTHDAY!

Art Pepper was born on September 1, 1925.  For his birthday, I figured I'd upload a gift for his fans.

Art, Roger (Manager—New Morning, Geneva), Alain (Manager—New Morning, Paris)

This track is incomplete by only a few bars at the very beginning.  It's Blues for Blanche, the opening tune he played at a gig in Geneva (at a club called The New Morning) in 1980.  The band was Milcho Leviev, Tony Dumas, and Carl Burnett.

I really agonize over these freebies.  This was an especially wonderful set and I have enough of it on tape to remaster and release as a new two-disc set, so I hesitate to give away something I might eventually want to sell.

I mean, this is no longer a hobby.
If I had saved or invested all the money we earned while we were touring I might be living on it now.  (I actually thought of buying Apple stock during the time when Steve Jobs was out and that stock was in the toilet!) But instead we spent the money on cocaine (mostly, though not entirely, Art's) and on clothes and jewelry (my retaliation; though I have to add I used a diamond ring to pay for the tile floor I'm standing on right now).

This record company is a joy AND a business.  I need to sell albums in order to make & restock albums, but I also need to share this stuff. And the thanks I get from fans makes me so happy.

So I justify this giveaway because the track is incomplete and the audio is kind of boomy.  AND the music is terrific.  (They play Patricia and Goodbye at this session, too, though Goodbye was recorded with a dying battery and so needs Wayne Peet's magic to rescue it from Bee Gees land.)

Anyway, the track is free, but donations toward more albums and freebies are gratefully accepted.  Don't want any coke, but diamonds, rubies, gold, and healthy stocks are always welcomed in lieu of cash.


Saturday, August 10, 2013

FREE! Cool For Summer: VALSE TRISTE



   In July of 1980 we toured with this quartet, pictured: Carl Burnett, Bob Magnusson and Milcho Leviev. The few nights at Sandy's, a club in Boston (or maybe Beverly?) Mass, were memorable because the music was consistently wonderful and because Art was so funny in his comments to the audience. His ankles were swollen as a result of poor health, too much alcohol, and steady traveling, so he was wearing slippers onstage, but otherwise his playing was strong and his mood was good. Partly because the band was so tight and swinging.
   Art had written wonderful waltz (for the legendary Vanguard sessions) but had had his usual problem devising name for it. So Milcho named it, and their little onstage conversation about it is charming. I don't think the tune has been released anywhere else. I may be wrong. I'm often wrong. Anyway, I think it's wonderful.

  Pay nothing. Just enter a zero in the payment box. It really is FREE. But please DONATE if you can—to keep the music coming.

(The Art 'n Warne album is now also available as a download at CD Baby,
at Bandcamp,

AND for those of you who HATE Paypal: on iTunes.)


So here 'tis: