Art Pepper - Smack Up

The title of this recording, Smack Up (which has been reissued on CD with two takes of the otherwise-unknown "Solid Citizens" added), is ironic and inadvertently truthful. Within a short period, Art Pepper would begin spending many years in jail due to his heroin addiction; this was his next-to-last album from that period. Despite the bleak future, the great altoist (who never seemed to make an uninspired record during his unstable life) is in excellent form in a quintet with trumpeter Jack Sheldon, pianist Pete Jolly, bassist Jimmy Bond, and drummer Frank Butler. Read More