Jim Pepper - Polar Bear Stomp

Certainly Jim Pepper has been one of my feature guys from the earliest days of this blog. When I think of it, Jim Pepper, Roland Kirk and Booker Ervin were the three saxophone voices I was obsessed with in the first year of the Crypt. Here is a re-visitation of a Pepper rarity in a seriously up-graded form with flac's and covers...the whole shebang!

"This trio album was made less than a year before Jim died at age of 50. The show was recorded at an obviously tiny club in Austria and has a real intimate feel to it. I've never heard of bassist Wayne Darling or drummer Bill Elgart but they are both quite good and fill their roles admirably. Darling in particular has some great moments, beginning with his sneaky lead into Greensleeves. The song starts out with what sounds like a bit of tune-up noodling and Pepper joking with someone in the background but Darling keeps going until suddenly he is playing the opening bass line from Coltrane's version on Africa Brass and soon Jim and Elgart jump into a wonderfully free and open version of the song. This album grows on me each time I hear it so if you're not thrilled on first listen, give it a couple more chances. I didn't much like Sonny Rollins' trio stuff at first either but now I love it and this album is charting a similar course for me."

Since I wrote that I've learned to love this album even more as a wonderfully warm and personal statement from a man near the end of his road. Jim's giant soul really shines out of this recording. Thank God this gem was preserved!

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