Jazz for aficionados

Art Pepper "Cherokee"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTx7xiVcmc8

Art Pepper, played an extremely long version of "Cherokee" on one of the nights at the Village Vanguard comeback sessions in 1977. Before he starts playing he addresses the audience by saying "If you can’t play this tune and play the crap  out of it...don’t blow!!"....then he proceeds to "knock the socks of it" All this when he was in his early 50’s after 30 plus years of drug abuse and long prison stints. He would die a few years later in his late 50’s. The complete sessions are a worthy investment.


https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-complete-village-vanguard-sessions-mw0000124795

Neither Sonny Stitt or Art Pepper would agree about Bird, but if that's what you heard, it works for me.


Pryso, I had a bad night and I'm kind of slow in the head about precisely where you're coming from, but I'll try. "Moods" by The Three Sounds is the album I'm going to pick, and a very special "Love For Sale" is the track.



                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2--UacYXvY

Everything Stitt played was creative  .

Although Sonny Stitt was compared to Bird, I think he wanted to sound like "Sonny Stitt".


        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp7zS1uoLwo


This is beautiful, and it sounds like "Sonny Stitt".


One of the first albums I ever bought;


        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXZWbr2fFrU

010

I'm not saying they wanted to sound like Bird identically. Thats why I said "almost" to a T. 

After Charlie Parker became "godlike" in the eyes of hundreds of up and coming sax players, they could not help but sound like him as they were using his waxed recordings for practice. Why even Sonny Rollins went through a "Bird Stage" early in his career. I am merely stating that many of the upper echelon sax players of that time and even today could blow off some bebop jams that sound somewhat identical in terms of chord progressions and tone ect.

In his book, Art Pepper stated Bird was a notch above everyone including himself so your right when you stated he would not have said that. Pepper was always modest, to a fault, but he had held a grudge against many black jazz musicians during his early years through to his long incarceration at San Quentin. The cause was all the rumors and backstage whisperings he always heard about " that white boy who tries to sound black on tenor". Yes black racism if you will. Its all in his book. When he was released from prison, and subsequently rehab, meeting his soon to be wife Laurie ( who I have exchanged emails), his career resurged and he played many gigs and also recorded with many great jazz artists regardless of their race. Elvin Jones plays the skins on every recording night at the "Complete Village Vanguard" sessions. and George Cables became his favorite piano player and trusted friend. He states in the book that all was forgiven, and his early distaste of black artists was unjust and bought about by his own insecurities and faults which was the root cause of his addiction.