Art Pepper – Meets the Rhythm Section Art Pepper is an alto sax player; the rhythm section here is the above mentioned band from “Kind of Blue”, sans John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Cannonball…. It’s the best rhythm section of the era playing at peak, and a man who is pouring his pain and fear and love out, un-filtered, though his alto sax.
I wrote this up a year or so ago for a friend who wanted to know what jazz albums I would suggest for someone who doesn’t know jazz but wants to get started with it.
The jazz I know and love is all late fifties to early sixties. So this is a list from that era only. This isn’t a complete list. This is the albums I consider must-haves from the era, but there are, certainly, many others that I’ve missed. I’m still discovering artists I don’t know.
First – the album I consider to be possibly the best album ever made, in any genre, by any artist. “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis. No collection should be without it. If you get it and like it, there’s a fantastic book by Ashley Kahn that disects the album – what lead up to it, who’s on it, how it was recorded, and then track-by-track notes that open up some of the songs in an incredibly vivid way. I read it with the album, on head-phones, went though the tracks over and over as I was reading the descriptions. It’s fascinating, but only if one already has explored the album.