Live at the Winery is the eighth consecutive release in a series of critically acclaimed, previously unheard Art Pepper recordings on the Widow s Taste label. This 1976 concert dates from the exhilarating early days of Art s last comeback. Album Notes This 1976 concert dates from the exhilarating early days of Art s last comeback. I thought it was time to focus on the music Art made with some of his alternate sidemen, says Laurie. I also chose it because I listened to the first track, Caravan, and it knocked me out. I knew it had to be heard. Recorded (anonymously) from the soundboard during a Labor Day jazz festival at the Paul Masson Winery, in Saratoga, California, this set features Art s Northern California band. He d first encountered them in 1974 at Pete Douglas s Beach House aka Bach Dancing and Dynamite up in Half Moon Bay. He fell in love at once with pianist Smith Dobson, a jazz educator and local performer who had worked with almost every jazz star who came through The Reunion in San Francisco and other Northern California venues. Art worked with him quite a few times and talked about taking him on the road. (Listen to Art s heartfelt little speech right after they play Rainy Day. ) The other band members were regulars Smith worked with: Jim Nichols on bass and young Brad Bilhorn on drums. This recording was made on the last day of a three-day gig, so the band was tight and relaxed. Art began the set with the aforementioned Caravan, which seems, despite its quaintly Oriental or Saharan references, absolutely hurtling through a Latin landscape. That s followed by one of Art s most beautiful and idiosyncratic originals, Ophelia. Written for Art s drug-addicted second wife, it s a tune that is, by turns, tender, swinging, wildly raging, and finally as fresh and pretty as the morning after a storm. The third tune, Here s That Rainy Day, is a classic ballad Art played frequently in those days during which he was still earning part of his living working casuals, Bar Mitzvahs, and weddings. It was a regularly included standard at those functions, and Art loved to play it. Ballads were his forte, after all, and this time it moves him more than usual. You can hear his voice break as he singles out Smith Dobson s solo. If Rainy Day is heavenly, the next track is earthy. At casuals Art played Ode to Billie Joe and Watermelon Man for dancing and enjoyed that tremendously. What Laurie Likes, his own original, reflects the joy he got from playing funk. But as his jazz comeback accelerated, he succumbed to his public s perception of jazz rock as too simple and passé and dropped that kind of thing from his repertoire, so we only get to hear this funky stuff n concerts like this one, from the 70s. Art usually ended his sets with Straight Life, his original, which had become his signature. This one is as breakneck and exciting as can be. And then, as an encore, we get another Pepper signature, a slow, sweet blues ( Saratoga Blues ).
