Art Pepper - An Afternoon In Norway: The Kongsberg Concert - 2 x 180g Vinyl LPs

2025

 Art Pepper An Afternoon in Norway: The Kongsberg Concert, a blazing, previously unreleased live recording by the great alto saxophonist captured at the titular 1980 festival in Norway.

Co-produced by Zev Feldman, the award-winning “Jazz Detective,” and Elemental partner Jordi Soley, the hard-hitting 1980 quartet date features Pepper, then in the middle of a late-career renaissance, backed sympathetically by the brilliant Bulgarian pianist Milcho Leviev, bassist Tony Dumas, and drummer Carl Burnett. The hastily booked appearance came less than 24 hours after Pepper and his band concluded an engagement at Ronnie Scott’s London club.

Elemental’s typically expansive notes for the limited-edition 2-LP set (to be issued on 180-gram vinyl and mastered by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab) includes recollections by the musicians wife Laurie Pepper (who co-authored his candid 1979 autobiography Straight Life), Dumas, and Burnett; detailed notes by acclaimed author/journalist Marc Myers; appreciations by saxophonists John Zorn and Rudresh Mahanthappa; and an archival interview conducted with Pepper at Kongsberg.