Jazz On The Beach 87
Art Pepper's 'Patricia'
One track seems to dominate this week’s Jazz On The Beach playlist - Art Pepper’s beautiful ballad to his daughter Patricia from the album Today (Galaxy 1979), recorded only three years before his death from a stroke at 52 years old. If you’re a Harry Bosch fan you may remember this song as the one he plays to his daughter Maddie in the Michael Connelly book The Black Box, or during the tenth episode of the TV series.
The story goes that during a recording break while making the album at Fantasy Studios in 1979, pianist Stanley Cowell started playing the tune which went down well with the other musicians, double bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Roy Haynes. Pepper was also impressed and asked what it was. Cowell replied that it was Art’s own tune (recorded in 1957) that he had forgotten about. Pepper decided to record it there and then, and this is that one, extraordinary take.
Just like last week with Freddie Hubbard’s studio and live versions of Jodo, there’s a 19 minute live version of Patricia recorded in Croydon in 1981 that I’ll play soon on a special show of long tracks only. For more about Art Pepper, this article from Ted Gioia’s Honest Broker Substack is highly recommended.
Also on this week’s playlist is the lyrical The Blues Still Blossoms, a second track from the Eye of I album by tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis that was released by ANTI-Records in February, with cellist Chris Hoffman and drummer Max Jaffe. I first heard Lewis on his extraordinary debut for Okeh ten years ago, and since then his trio, duo (with drummer Chad Taylor) and Red Lily Quartet recordings have all been exhilarating and inspirational.
There’s a new track from Phi-Sonics, a Los Angeles meditative jazz group led by bassist Seth Ford-Young and featuring flautist Sylvain Carton, electric pianist Mitchell Yoshida and drummer Josh Collazo. We Walk In The Gardens Of Our Ancestors comes from their second album Octavia which will be released on Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana label at the end of June.
Plus…new releases from Bristolians Born74 & Onj and Italian drummer/producer Debra, Blue Note hard bop from Jackie McLean, Lee Morgan and Grant Green, and following last week’s version of Lady Day & John Coltrane by Nautilus and Kei Owada there’s the original performed by Gil Scott-Heron. There’s also the title track from trumpeter Ron Everett’s extremely rare self-released 1977 album Glitter of the City which is being reissued in a couple of weeks by Jazzman Records in their Holy Grail series.
Listen to this week’s Jazz On The Beach on Mixcloud - here’s the link
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