Art Pepper-Meets The Rhythm Section

According to Pepper, this album was recorded under enormous pressure, as he first learned of the recording session the morning he was due in the studio, and he had never met the other musicians, all of whom he greatly admired. He was playing on an instrument in a bad state of repair, and was suffering from a drug problem.Purportedly, Pepper had not played the saxophone for some time, either for two weeks (according to the liner notes), or six months (according to Pepper’s autobiography Straight Life), although the discography in Straight Life indicates that Pepper had recorded many sessions in the previous weeks, including one five days earlier. Either way, the record is worth listening to.