Art Pepper
‘The Complete Maiden Voyage Recordings’
Omnivore

It was not much of an exaggeration when saxophonist Art Pepper said, “My whole life went into this.” Quoted by his wife, Laurie Pepper, the keeper of his flame, he was speaking of a performance of “Arthur’s Blues,” one of about 50 songs recorded over a three-night/eight-show run in August 1981 at Maiden Voyage, a Los Angeles jazz club that opened in 1979.

In 1984, two years after Pepper’s death, Galaxy Records released highlights of these performances on three LPs, merely a fraction of the total material recorded. Over the last 40 years, significantly less than half of the Maiden Voyage tracks have been heard. Now, the whole enchilada is out in a deluxe seven-CD package that contains all eight-and-a-half hours of music as well as a 40-page booklet with photos and reminiscences by Mrs. Pepper.

Pepper’s whole life had, indeed, been devoted to reaching that point. He was 55 years old, and already had enough experience, enough high times and hard times, to last several lifetimes. More important than that, by now he knew well how to express all that experience through his horn, and had assembled what he believed to be his perfect rhythm section, with pianist George Cables, bassist David Williams, and drummer Carl Burnett.

Pepper had much in common with Chet Baker and Bill Evans, virtuoso players of approximately the same generation whose careers were sabotaged by drug abuse. Like Evans, Pepper — who had also managed to beat his heroin addiction — seemed to know his time was short, and may have stepped up his recording schedule in response. This marathon project parallels several by Evans in the last months of his even shorter life. This was near the end for the saxophonist; he would be gone 10 months later and the club itself would close a year after that.

A few weeks after the Maiden Voyage gig, a Galaxy producer, Ed Michel, presented Pepper with a set of cassette tapes representing that three-night run. Then, as his widow delineates in the booklet notes, the musician listened intently and wrote out an elaborate set of notes detailing what he wanted to be included in the albums. Mrs. Pepper quotes an exchange between her husband and the producer, wherein he asks, “You need my input on all the tracks because you think I’ll be dead before the last release comes out,” and Mr. Michel responds, very directly though not entirely diplomatically, “Yeah.”

It might be surprising that “Arthur’s Blues” elicited the most enthusiastic response from the artist. There are other blues numbers here: “For Freddie,” which he played at least once every night, is relatively fast and exuberant, and “Thank You Blues” is a traditional-style slow and funky blues.

Pepper tends to open his sets with the fastest and hardest-hitting numbers, like the modern jazz standards “Donna Lee” and “Allen’s Alley.” These show that Pepper, who had come of age as a musician at that time that the bebop revolution was taking hold, was essentially a bebopper at heart. 

Yet Pepper, more than most musicians of his generation, continually expanded his purview, incorporating latter-day developments into his mix. He wrote compositions in a Latin jazz style that are both heard multiple times in the package, “Samba Mom Mom” and “Mambo Koyama,” the latter named for a prolific Japanese record producer. There are examples of a jazz waltz, usually in something more like 6/4 or 6/8 time, like “Road Waltz” and “Valse Triste,” which isn’t quite as slow or as sad as the title suggests. There are also several exquisite, heart-felt ballads, like “What’s New?” and “Everything Happens to Me.” 

“Arthur’s Blues,” from the final night, makes for a distinct contrast with “Thank You Blues,” from the first night. Although they’re both slow, “Thank You” is more of a conventional blues, on which Mr. Williams plays arco, making his big wooden instrument sound like a woman moaning in a deep contralto voice, telling her troubles to all the world. 

“Arthur’s Blues,” comes at the very end of the run, the last song of the last set on the last night. It’s a 15-minute tour de force, a slow, modal piece in 3/4 that shows the influence on Pepper’s music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane — particularly from “So What” on the “Kind of Blue” album. Pepper starts slowly, gradually piling on the tension and the excitement, until however many choruses later there’s simply nothing left to play. You can well believe that his whole life went into this.

Mrs. Pepper also recalls a conversation involving Freddie Hubbard, drummer Roy Haynes, and Pepper at “an all-star festival in England.” As the three players leave the stage, Hubbard says to Pepper, “You got the biggest hand of all of us.” Mr. Haynes asks, “Why?” and the trumpeter responds, “Because he’s the greatest saxophone player in the world, that’s why.”