Christmas FREEBIE (Pepperpot: Unissued 1949 w/Stan Kenton) PLUS BONUS!

 Pepperpot is from 1949 when Art was with the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Personally, I'm not crazy about a big blasting band, but what's wonderful is the contrast of all that noise with the wild sweet sound of Art, floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee. Pepperpot is FREE (tho you can always drop a few coins in the hat).

BUT WAIT.  A payment of 15$ makes you a member of the Widow's Kitchen Cabinet AND that gets you this COMPLETE album 15 tracks of ALTERNATE & UNISSUED takes from truly historic recording sessions from 1949 thru 1960: Antique Art Pepper.  It also entitles you, during the following year, to SPECIAL FREEBIES (hidden in that Cabinet) for which you'll be sent unique download codes.

Here are some of the other artists on the album:  Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson, Shorty Rogers, Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, Shelly Manne, Conte candoli, Bill Russo, Warne Marsh, Ronnie Ball, Ben Tucker, Gary Frommer, Carl Perkins, Frank Capp, Al Porcino, Jack Sheldon, Med Flory, Russ Freeman, Joe Mondragon, Mel Lewis, Paul Chambers, Wynton Kelly, Pete Jolly, Dolo Coker.

THE download includes a PDF of the liner note by Ken Poston (with historic photos) available for download.

ALSO: Blues Fanatics, Art Pepper Fanatics, Vinyl Fanatics:

Neon Art now on Sale at Omnivore! A last minute gift perhaps????

http://omnivorerecordings.com/omnivore-holiday-sale/

Just For Fun: Pre Christmas Freebie

DON'T pay for this one. Consider it a Christmas bonus.  Audio quality stinks. AND it's incomplete. HOWEVER. Rita-san is one of my favorites of Art's charts. And he played it so rarely. I have no idea who's in the band. It was recorded at Gilly's in Dayton Ohio in 1977.  The pianist is either the weirdo who arrived in the hearse or it's the curly red-haired kid from Juilliard who jumped up on the stage to replace Charlie-Manson-at-the-piano (and his band of babes) after he got thrown out.  I'm pretty sure it's the kid. Anyway, Art called this tune a "shuffle" (it says 8/8) harking back to his pre-war days on Central Avenue in L.A. This dates from 1977, a week or so before the spectacular weekend at The Village Vanguard in New York.


And if you want to try to play it.  Here's the music.

Here's a Jolly Track to Warm Your Winter: November FREEBIE "Vanguard Max" with ART PEPPER, GEORGE CABLES, GEORGE MRAZ, ELVIN JONES

When Art was recording the wonderful Straight Life album for Fantasy/Galaxy, the pianist Tommy Flanagan had a slight problem with Art’s tune “Make a List (Make a Wish)”. The arrangement seemed unnecessarily complex to him. At least that’s what I surmised based on an ironic one-liner he tossed out. Art went over the chart with him. It took a while. When Art finished explaining the arrangement, Flanagan asked, “And then what do we do?” Art said, “Then we blow.”  Tommy said, "Ohhhh, THEN we blow."

Sometimes Art’s arrangements were kind of complex, especially a few he wrote on the East Coast Tour in ’77 on his way to play at the Vanguard. “My Friend John” and “For Freddie” were two of those.  They also swung beautifully and gave Art what all his original arrangements gave him, a sort of sculptor’s armature on which he played and wove his little stories.  And he re-wrote both those charts after we got home—after the passionate drugged madness of the Vanguard session—to make them more playable.

Vanguard Max was really just a blues, but the arrangement, I think, was adorable if a little difficult. They NEVER got it right and Art never got around to rewriting it. This is an alternate track, only available on the complete Vanguard Box.

Anyway, here are the chart and the MUSIC for Vanguard Max. Pay nothing or support the release of more Art Pepper, more FREEBIES, by paying a buck or two if you can.

Sometimes the Best Things in Life Aren't Free... But ohhhhh

If anybody wants to know my my personal favorite Art Pepper recordings, they are:

1.  THIS ONE

2.  "Goodbye" on the Village Vanguard set

3.  "Our Song" on the Winter Moon album

*4.  "Red Car" on the Neon Art (Omnivore) set
—which will be released by Widow's Taste on CD next Spring.

I'VE UPLOADED THIS ONE BEFORE, BUT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED IT.

IT'S WORTH DOING AGAIN.

I'M CHARGING TWO BUCKS FOR THIS PHENOMENAL TRACK NOW 

because I'm trying to raise money for my *NEXT RELEASE NEXT SPRING.

Those of you who downloaded it for free CONGRATS. Go to the Art Pepper Bandcamp page anyway. There might be a few FREEBIES there you missed!

Recorded at the Maiden Voyage with George Cables, David Williams, and Carl Burnett.  Previously released.

"Everything Happens to Me" should have been Art's theme song.
He played the tune frequently during his early years, but he never played it—or in my opinion anything else—the way he plays it here. In my opinion, which may be worth very little because it's so subjective, nobody ever played anything quite as wonderful as this "Everything Happens to Me." I'll tell you Art's opinion. One afternoon he sat down and listened to it seriously. When it was over he looked up at me and shook his head. He was absolutely dazzled. He said, "I don't know...am I crazy?" I knew exactly what he meant. He meant that he didn't think anybody had ever before played anything quite as wonderful as this "Everything Happens to Me." But he must be crazy, because the world was not beating a path to his door or crowning him with lilies or electing him emperor—or even putting his picture on the cover of Down Beat.

FREE MUSIC PLUS LIVE MUSIC PLUS LIVE ME!

Here's the September Freebie, plus

AN INVITATION TO THOSE OF YOU WHO LIVE IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

 An evening of jazz and a reading from

 ART: Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman

Friday, September 19th

Music begins at 5:30

I begin at about 8:00 ish

Here's a LINK  to the event at Bird & Beckett Books in San Francisco

(& if you want to know what some very perceptive and delightful people think of my book read: REVIEWS)

 

And here's the FREEBIE

 

AN OFFER AND A (FREE) SONG!

COMPANIONS
NOW AVAILABLE FOR KINDLE, NOOK, IPAD, ETC. (CHEAP) 

 

STRAIGHT LIFE (paperback & Kindle)

ART: WHY I STUCK WITH A JUNKIE JAZZMAN (paperback & ALL e-formats)

REVIEWS! (Harper's! Jazz Times, etc.!)

Perfect humility and acceptance...   

  A very powerful love story

Laurie's voice is richly metaphorical and philosophical

Witty, wise, and deeply compassionate...

Alone, Art and Laurie were lost; together they were found

Okay. You've been patient. Here's the MUSIC, but...

AUGUST FREEBIE & MUCH MUCH MORE

Happy birthday to ME. And next month it's Art's. I apologize for skipping July but I've been overwhelmed by the the work of creating an epub version of WISWAJJ (see sidebar and buy it if you haven't --- check out http://lauriepepper.net for reviews etc.).

Like it says, Art with Duke Jordan, David Williams, Carl Burnett

Click HERE to go the the album & click on Over the Rainbow to download RAINBOW for FREE.

The WHOLE album, more than 2 hours of magnificent music, was originally licensed to Fantasy Records (by me). It has been bootlegged everywhere.  For good reason.  I've been listening all morning. It's wonderful! AND...

I'm offering it NOW, more than 2 hours of magnificent music (plus downloadable liner notes), for only ten bucks (the price may go up) & if you buy it from ME you'll support the release of more Art Pepper.

Let me just say the 22 minute CARAVAN is phenomenal on this one.  One of the best Art ever played.  Well, really, it's all great: Besame at 16 minutes is divine, Cherokee is burning hot, Radio Blues is as funky as it gets (you know me by now. That's what I LIKE), and of course Duke and Art are ol' time beboppers so there are Rhythm-A-Ning, Good Bait (on clarinet!), etc., thrilling as well.) Guaranteed. 

JUNE, THE MONTH FOR LOVE AND MARRIAGE. SO, WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE?

FREE: Live at Dontes, Art Pepper, Milcho Leviev, Bob Magnusson, Carl Burnett 1980

 It's late! It's incomplete but it's free, folks!

 

Soundtrack to "ART"

I figure most people are like me, they want to see pictures of the people they read about (so I've got lots of pictures) and they want to hear the MUSIC, too. 

And, like me, they might be a little lazy and not want to plow through the internet, looking for photographs and tracks.

These are specific tracks I talk about in my memoir,
a selection just for readers,

a download just for reference.

 (All tracks but one were beautifully, professionally recorded. I've licensed them from the companies that own them).

 Click HERE to download or stream the MUSIC (and to download the FREEBIE*). And click HERE to buy the book. And click HERE to buy Art Pepper CDs.

*AND AS A BONUS FOR COMING HERE.  ONE FREE TRACK.  LIVE, FROM ATLANTA, IT'S AN INCOMPLETE (part of bass solo missing) BUT BEAUTIFUL VERSION OF PATRICIA.

The MEMOIR is HERE! HUGE DISCOUNT 3 DAYS ONLY

STRAIGHT LIFE (at Amazon)
Published in 1979, Straight Life was the story of Art Pepper. He was a deeply troubled, madly gifted artist, an addict. Art told me his story, I wrote it down, and I fell in love with and married that complex and inspiring man. Straight Life, according to enthusiastic reviews in The New Yorker, Time, The Village Voice, etc. became (and remains) a classic. 

ART (at Amazon May 16, 2014)
In Straight Life Art cast himself as a lost, desperate genius and me, at the end, as his angel of rescue. During our marriage we worked successfully together to enact that story. But I was no angel, and we rescued each other. ART is a memoir of that marriage. This is a paperback book, 382 pages, 100 photos, and with a complete index

On May 16, the book will sell for $20

BUT RIGHT NOW

on May 13, 14, and 15

I'm selling it for 60% off. That's $8.00 

Go HERE, buy it, and when you check out

enter this discount code.  GF4UNB8B

It's only good for 3 days. 

Journalists, contact me for a super-deluxe discount code!

CONTACT LAURIE

FREE: But Beautiful! It's April...

...and my MEMOIR may very well be out next month!  Check out my SITE.

Okay: Here's the music, and it's FREE. But, well, you know…

FREE: PASSION, LOVE, TERROR: MUSIC

THE FREEBIE this month was suggested to me while I worked on my memoir of my life with Art -- Due out in April or May of this year.

The background: In 1977 Art recorded for three nights at the Village Vanguard with George Cables, George Mraz, and Elvin Jones.  This tune was released on the very first album from that session, Thursday Night at the Village Vanguard, though it was recorded on Saturday, the final night. And it was edited a bit for that release by John Koenig who thought the ending "lugubrious." I always regretted that edit and was given a chance to restore the original just as Art played it when I worked with Fantasy Records to release a complete boxed set of the session. Unfortunately none of the Vanguard material is currently available from the label.

Here's the bit from my memoir that made me long to hear this tune again.

They recorded for three nights. What you can hear now in those recordings of Art’s voice on the last night was not a drug-induced stupor. It was a stupor induced by a lack of drugs: His nose had finally swollen shut. He hadn’t really slept for about a week, hadn’t been persuaded to eat much more than an occasional candy bar for longer than that. He could hardly stand. That evening he had passed out in the hotel room, his face on a glass-topped bed-table which held his last few lines of coke. I roused him and brought him to the gig. John's [John Snyder's] assistant helped me get him there. 

Photo by Mitchell Seidel

The table’s edge had left a deep crease in Art’s cheek, like a thick scar, and he was dead-eyed, yellowish, and emaciated inside these stiff, slightly iridescent clothes he’d bought earlier on the tour at some pimp shoppe he’d found in Dayton (of all places). In the kitchen of the Vanguard, waiting to perform, he passed out again. Then it was time to go on. "He stumbled to the stage, stood in front of the mike with his horn, and faced the audience," I wrote in the liner note for the release of the whole set years later: "and suddenly he was alive. Alive! And yes, he was a monster. Listen to him play 'Cherokee,' of all things, the tune he always said separated the real jazz players from the play ones. Listen to him fly." The album was released by John Koenig after Les died the following year. The reviews were rhapsodic and it was a hit––in the small, international way great jazz albums sometimes are. 

 If there is any track on any album that sums up the beauty and power of Art’s triumphant artist’s soul, his gift, it’s the heartbreaking “Goodbye” he played that night and dedicated to his old friend, Hampton Hawes, "Who’s holding a place up above for all of us cats here on the stage.” For me it’s the strongest and most passionate performance he ever gave. I’ve heard Art tell an audience that playing jazz was like an exorcism. He summoned up his demons to demolish them. He mined his pain, confusion, desperation, anger, grief (also his passion, tenderness, and joy), to triumph in his music. He used his emotional past, hectic present, and his terrible fears and wild hopes about the future to connect with his listeners. He gave form to their feeling. He was an artist, and he won the battle every time. He won it at the Vanguard.

Let's start the new year off with a FREEBIE!

Incomplete, but don't complain.  It's a stunner.

In 1980, Art performed at a club in Geneva, Switzerland: The New Morning.
One night of that gig was recorded and it's ALL just beautiful.  Meanwhile, here's a nine-minute taste I cooked up today.  Audio quality not great, but the music's fabulous.

In 2013 I promised a gift to all those who donated to Widow's Taste during the year. I'm giving you donors the whole TWO HOURS of music from that night. I'm immensely grateful for the encouragement and the cash. Download codes will be sent to you in a special email. Look for it.
I promise I'll make the whole thing available to everybody else (for a reasonable price) as a download later on in 2014.

P.S. I'm having a problem viewing and hearing the Player in Chrome! If you have problems with Chrome try another browser. It's here. Right here!