Jim Pepper
Encyclopedia
Jim Pepper was an American
jazz
saxophonist, composer, and singer of Native American
ancestry.
, (active between 1965 and 1968, with guitarist Larry Coryell
) is credited as the first to combine elements of jazz and rock. His primary instrument was the tenor saxophone
(he also played flute
and soprano saxophone
). A similar timbre
was taken up by later players such as Jan Garbarek
, Michael Brecker
, and David Sanborn
.
Of Kaw
and Creek heritage, Pepper also achieved notoriety for his compositions combining elements of jazz and Native American music. Don Cherry
and Ornette Coleman
encouraged Pepper to reflect his roots and heritage and incorporate it into his jazz playing and composition. His "Witchi Tai To" (derived from a peyote song
of the Native American Church
which he had learned from his grandfather) is the most famous example of this hybrid style; the song has been covered by many other artists including Harper's Bizarre, Ralph Towner
(with and without Oregon), Jan Garbarek
, Pete Wyoming Bender, and Brewer & Shipley
. Pepper supported the American Indian Movement
.
He served as musical director for Night of the First Americans, a Native American self-awareness benefit concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and played also at numerous pow-wow
s.
Pepper was a member of the short-lived band Everything Is Everything with Chris Hills, Lee Reinoehl, Chip Baker, John Waller and Jim Zitro. Their sole album spawned the near-hit single "Witchi Tai To" (which received abundant airplay and on which Pepper was the lead singer). It was issued on Vanguard Apostolic and UK Vanguard in England.
In his own projects, Pepper recorded with Don Cherry
, Naná Vasconcelos
, Collin Walcott
, Kenny Werner
, John Scofield
, Ed Schuller
, Hamid Drake
, and many others. His CD Comin' and Goin' (1983) is the definitive statement of Pepper's unique "American Indian jazz" with nine songs played by four different line-ups. He also worked with the Liberation Music Orchestra
, Paul Motian
' s quintet, Bob Moses
, Marty Cook
, Mal Waldron
, David Friesen
, and Amina Claudine Myers
, and toured Europe intensively throughout his career.
Jim Pepper died in 1992, of lymphoma
.
In 1998, composer Gunther Schuller
arranged, conducted and recorded The Music of Jim Pepper for symphony orchestra and jazz band. Pepper was posthumously granted the Lifetime Musical Achievement Award by First Americans in the Arts
in 1999, and in 2000 he was inducted into the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame. In 2005 the Oregon Legislative Assembly
honored the extraordinary accomplishments and musical legacy of Pepper. In 2008 the New York-based band Effi Briest released a version of Pepper's Newly-Wed Song as the B-side to their début single, Mirror Rim on Loog Records.
In 2001, Future Pilot AKA covered "Witchi Tai To" on the album Tiny Waves, Mighty Sea.
In April 2007, the National Museum of the American Indian
in Washington, D.C.
accepted Pepper's saxophone and hat at a ceremony honoring his music and legacy.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
saxophonist, composer, and singer of Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
ancestry.
Biography
Beginning in the late 1960s, Pepper became a pioneer of fusion jazz. His band, The Free SpiritsThe Free Spirits
The Free Spirits were an American band who have been credited for being the first ever jazz-rock group. The band also incorporated elements of psychedelic rock, pop, and garage rock.-Formation:...
, (active between 1965 and 1968, with guitarist Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell is an American jazz fusion guitarist.-Biography:Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington, where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby...
) is credited as the first to combine elements of jazz and rock. His primary instrument was the tenor saxophone
Tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
(he also played flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
and soprano saxophone
Soprano saxophone
The soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...
). A similar timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
was taken up by later players such as Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek is a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was born in Mysen, Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war Czesław Garbarek and a Norwegian farmer's daughter...
, Michael Brecker
Michael Brecker
Michael Leonard Brecker was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Acknowledged as "a quiet, gentle musician widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since John Coltrane," he has been awarded 15 Grammy Awards as both performer and composer and was inducted into Down Beat Jazz...
, and David Sanborn
David Sanborn
David Sanborn is an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school...
.
Of Kaw
Kaw (tribe)
The Kaw Nation are an American Indian people of the central Midwestern United States. The tribe known as Kaw have also been known as the "People of the South wind", "People of water", Kansa, Kaza, Kosa, and Kasa. Their tribal language is Kansa, classified as a Siouan language.The toponym "Kansas"...
and Creek heritage, Pepper also achieved notoriety for his compositions combining elements of jazz and Native American music. Don Cherry
Don Cherry (jazz)
Donald Eugene Cherry was an innovative African-American jazz cornetist whose career began with a long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He went on to live in many parts of the world and work with a wide variety of musicians.-Biography:Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and...
and Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
encouraged Pepper to reflect his roots and heritage and incorporate it into his jazz playing and composition. His "Witchi Tai To" (derived from a peyote song
Peyote song
Peyote songs are a form of Native American music, now most often performed as part of the Native American Church. They are typically accompanied by a rattle and water drum, and are used in a ceremonial aspect during the sacramental taking of peyote....
of the Native American Church
Native American Church
Native American Church, a religious denomination which practices Peyotism or the Peyote religion, originated in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, and is the most widespread indigenous religion among Native Americans in the United States...
which he had learned from his grandfather) is the most famous example of this hybrid style; the song has been covered by many other artists including Harper's Bizarre, Ralph Towner
Ralph Towner
Ralph Towner is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and bandleader. He plays the twelve-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion and trumpet.-Biography:...
(with and without Oregon), Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek is a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was born in Mysen, Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war Czesław Garbarek and a Norwegian farmer's daughter...
, Pete Wyoming Bender, and Brewer & Shipley
Brewer & Shipley
Brewer & Shipley were an American folk rock music duo of the late 1960s through 1970s, consisting of singer-songwriters Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley. They were known for their intricate guitar work, vocal harmonies and socially conscious lyrics. Their greatest success was the song "One Toke Over the...
. Pepper supported the American Indian Movement
American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...
.
He served as musical director for Night of the First Americans, a Native American self-awareness benefit concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and played also at numerous pow-wow
Pow-wow
A pow-wow is a gathering of North America's Native people. The word derives from the Narragansett word powwaw, meaning "spiritual leader". A modern pow-wow is a specific type of event where both Native American and non-Native American people meet to dance, sing, socialize, and honor American...
s.
Pepper was a member of the short-lived band Everything Is Everything with Chris Hills, Lee Reinoehl, Chip Baker, John Waller and Jim Zitro. Their sole album spawned the near-hit single "Witchi Tai To" (which received abundant airplay and on which Pepper was the lead singer). It was issued on Vanguard Apostolic and UK Vanguard in England.
In his own projects, Pepper recorded with Don Cherry
Don Cherry (jazz)
Donald Eugene Cherry was an innovative African-American jazz cornetist whose career began with a long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He went on to live in many parts of the world and work with a wide variety of musicians.-Biography:Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and...
, Naná Vasconcelos
Naná Vasconcelos
Naná Vasconcelos is a Brazilian Latin jazz percussionist, vocalist and berimbau player, most notable for his works with Pat Metheny, Don Cherry, Egberto Gismonti, and Gato Barbieri....
, Collin Walcott
Collin Walcott
Collin Walcott was a North American musician. He was a student of Ravi Shankar and Vasant Rai. Collin expanded the role of the sitar in western music. Walcott studied music and ethnomusicology at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and at The University of California at Los Angeles...
, Kenny Werner
Kenny Werner
Kenny Werner is an American jazz pianist.-Biography:Kenny Werner is a world-class pianist and composer. His prolific output of compositions, recordings and publications continue to impact audiences around the world....
, John Scofield
John Scofield
John Scofield , often referred to as "Sco," is an American jazz guitarist and composer, who has played and collaborated with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey Defrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham,...
, Ed Schuller
Ed Schuller
Edwin G. Schuller is an American jazz bassist and composer.Schuller was born in New York City; his father is Gunther Schuller and his younger brother is drummer George Schuller. Schuller learned clarinet and guitar as a child and switched to bass at age 15; that same year he had his first...
, Hamid Drake
Hamid Drake
Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. He lives in Chicago, IL but spends much of his time traveling around the world for concerts and studio dates....
, and many others. His CD Comin' and Goin' (1983) is the definitive statement of Pepper's unique "American Indian jazz" with nine songs played by four different line-ups. He also worked with the Liberation Music Orchestra
Liberation Music Orchestra
Liberation Music Orchestra is a jazz album by Charlie Haden, released in 1969 . It was Haden's first album as leader.The inspiration for the album came when Haden heard songs from the Spanish Civil War...
, Paul Motian
Paul Motian
Stephen Paul Motian was an American jazz drummer, percussionist and composer of Armenian extraction.He first came to prominence in the late 1950s in the piano trio of Bill Evans, and later led several groups...
' s quintet, Bob Moses
Bob Moses (musician)
Rakalam Bob Moses is an American jazz drummer born in New York City.Moses played with Roland Kirk in 1964-65 while he was still a teenager. In 1966 he and Larry Coryell formed The Free Spirits, a jazz fusion ensemble, and from 1967 to 1969 he played in Gary Burton's quartet...
, Marty Cook
Marty Cook
Marty Cook is an American jazz trombonist.Cook was born in New York and raised in Ohio, where he began playing trombone at age seven. He played in New York in the late 1960s, recording with Marzette Watts in 1968. He played in a rock band in California from 1971–72 and then returned to New York,...
, Mal Waldron
Mal Waldron
Malcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...
, David Friesen
David Friesen
David Friesen is an American jazz bassist born in Tacoma, Washington. Friesen plays the double bass as well as the Oregon bass, which is an electrified acoustic bass....
, and Amina Claudine Myers
Amina Claudine Myers
Amina Claudine Myers in Blackwell, Arkansas; is an American jazz pianist, organist, vocalist, composer, and musical arranger.-Biography:...
, and toured Europe intensively throughout his career.
Jim Pepper died in 1992, of lymphoma
Lymphoma
Lymphoma is a cancer in the lymphatic cells of the immune system. Typically, lymphomas present as a solid tumor of lymphoid cells. Treatment might involve chemotherapy and in some cases radiotherapy and/or bone marrow transplantation, and can be curable depending on the histology, type, and stage...
.
In 1998, composer Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...
arranged, conducted and recorded The Music of Jim Pepper for symphony orchestra and jazz band. Pepper was posthumously granted the Lifetime Musical Achievement Award by First Americans in the Arts
First Americans in the Arts
First Americans in the Arts is a non-profit organization based in Beverly Hills, California. According to its website, the organization was created "to recognize, honor and promote American Indian participation in the powerful arena of the entertainment industry, incorporating the areas of film,...
in 1999, and in 2000 he was inducted into the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame. In 2005 the Oregon Legislative Assembly
Oregon Legislative Assembly
The Oregon Legislative Assembly is the state legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. The Legislative Assembly is bicameral, consisting of an upper and lower house: the Senate, whose 30 members are elected to serve four-year terms; and the House of Representatives, with 60 members elected to...
honored the extraordinary accomplishments and musical legacy of Pepper. In 2008 the New York-based band Effi Briest released a version of Pepper's Newly-Wed Song as the B-side to their début single, Mirror Rim on Loog Records.
In 2001, Future Pilot AKA covered "Witchi Tai To" on the album Tiny Waves, Mighty Sea.
In April 2007, the National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
accepted Pepper's saxophone and hat at a ceremony honoring his music and legacy.
Discography
- Pepper's Pow Wow (1971) Embryo RecordsEmbryo RecordsEmbryo Records was a jazz and rock record label founded by Herbie Mann as a division of Atlantic Records, itself distributed by the Atlantic subsidiary Cotillion Records. The label released albums in the years 1969 through 1977.-Discography:...
- Comin' and Goin (1983) Island RecordsIsland RecordsIsland Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
- Dakota Song (1987)
- Art of the DuoArt of the DuoArt of the Duo is an album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron and saxophonist Jim Pepper recorded in 1988 and released on the German Tutu label.-Track listing:# "Ticket to Tokyo" — 4:49# "Ruby, My Dear" — 6:45...
with Mal WaldronMal WaldronMalcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...
(Tutu, 1988) - The Path (1988)
- Flying Eagle—Live at New Morning, Paris (1989)
- Remembrance (1990)
As sideman
With Mal WaldronMal Waldron
Malcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...
- Remembering the MomentRemembering the MomentRemembering the Moment is a live album by David Friesen, Eddie Moore, Jim Pepper, Julian Priester and Mal Waldron recorded in Portland, Oregon in 1987 and released on the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:...
with Julian PriesterJulian PriesterJulian Priester is an American jazz trombonist and composer.He has played with many artists including Sun Ra, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock.-Biography:...
, Eddie Moore & David FriesenDavid FriesenDavid Friesen is an American jazz bassist born in Tacoma, Washington. Friesen plays the double bass as well as the Oregon bass, which is an electrified acoustic bass....
(Soul Note, 1987) - Quadrologue at UtopiaQuadrologue at UtopiaQuadrologue at Utopia is a live album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron featuring Jim Pepper recorded in 1989 and released on the German Tutu label.-Reception:Allmusic awarded the album 3 stars.-Track listing:# "Ticket to Utopia" — 20:31...
(Tutu, 1989) - More Git' Go at UtopiaMore Git' Go at UtopiaMore Git' Go at Utopia is a live album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron featuring Jim Pepper recorded in 1989 and released on the German Tutu label.-Track listing:# "More Git' Go at Utopia" — 20:43...
(Tutu, 1989)
Filmography
- Pepper's Pow Wow (1995). Directed by Sandra Sunrising Osawa. Seattle, Washington: Upstream Productions.
External links
- Discography
- NEW Comprehensive Jim Pepper Discography
- Jim Pepper Lives! Web site
- Jim Pepper Tribute at Portland, Oregon Jazz Festival (Feb. 2005)
- "Jazz and The Politics of Identity: The Legacy of Jim Pepper" (In Motion Magazine)
- "Jim Pepper: The Man Who Never Sleeps" (In Motion Magazine)
- Oregon State Legislature Joint Resolution 31, passed 20 May 2005 in honor of Jim Pepper
- Jack Berry, "Comin' and Goin': Memories of Jazzman Jim Pepper" Oregon Historical Quarterly Spring, 2006