This is the last of four volumes which represent the Maiden Voyage sessions. It contains some of the best material, and unless you own the 16-CD box, Art Pepper: The Complete Galaxy Recordings (or unless you were present at the L.A. jazz club on the nights of August 13, 14, and 15, 1981), you've probably never heard these performances before. Gary Giddins called the sessions "a definitive document of what it was like to see Art Pepper in the final phase of his career." Here, with his favorite band, he plays two standards–"Donna Lee" (full-out bebop) and "But Beautiful" (delicate and soulful)–and three original charts: one fey, one frantic, and one transcendent (the heartfelt, funky, stunning "Arthur's Blues").

with George Cables, David Williams, Carl Burnett