Smack Up (+Bonus)

""Smack Up" is an uncomfortable title for a journey into darkness, especially if it hits a listener expecting something different. Someone may shake their head at the allusion to a heroin fix, but, that said, listen with fascination anyway. It is Pepper at his probing, stabbing best, trading with trumpet Jack Sheldon and driving with a killer rhythm section. "Las Cuevas de Mario" is interesting, shifting from 5 to 4 and back. And, to make the point, Frank Butler playing an insistent figure of 5 to close. "A Bit of Basie" is straight-ahead blues, no fooling around." AllAboutJazz

"The title of this recording, Smack Up 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. Highlights of this fine album include Harold Land's title cut, the five/four blues "Las Cuevas de Mario," and Ornette Coleman's "Tears Inside." [Some reissues add two takes of the otherwise unknown "Solid Citizens."]" AllMusic