Art Pepper’s ‘Last Concert’ To Be Released

  I  

Widow’s Taste will release Art Pepper’s The Last Concert on May 30 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Pepper’s last concert, which took place May 30, 1982, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Ten days after the performance, Pepper was hospitalized with a cerebral hemorrhage. He died June 15, 1982.

The set list is comprised of three originals—“Landscape,” “Ophelia,” “Mambo Koyama”—and the standards “Over the Rainbow” and “When You’re Smiling,” a clarinet feature dedicated to Zoot Sims, who shared the evening’s bill at the Kennedy Center with Pepper.

The Last Concert is the second in a series of unreleased art projects documenting the late alto saxophonist’s work.

For more information, visit: www.straightlife.info



  • Rodney_Holmes_Courtesy_Meinl.jpg

    A drummer’s drummer, Rodney Holmes gigged with everyone from Joe Zawinul and Carlos Santana to Steve Kimock and the Brecker Brothers.

  • DB26_Critics_Poll_Montage.jpg

    Clockwise from top left, Mary Halvorson, Patricia Brennan, Adam O’Farrill, Keith Jarrett’s At the Deer Head Inn: The Complete Recordings, Sheila Jordan and Jaki Byard.

  • Abdhullah_Ibrahim_Detroit_Jazz_Festival_2022_by_Michael_Jackson.jpg

    Ibrahim was an early jazz acolyte, studying the music via 78s he would buy from soldiers stationed in South Africa — who also gave him the nickname “Dollar.”

  • DB26_Joe_Lovano_by_Michael_Jackson.jpg

    Joe Lovano’s Paramount Quartet will record live at New York’s Village Vanguard for ECM records on Aug. 26–27.

  • promoFINALdress-1_copy.jpg

    “There was something about her tone and sound and phrasing — an intimacy, a vulnerability, an honesty,” says Joshua Redman, who produced Cavassa’s record after she toured with his band.


On Sale Now
August 2026
74th Annual DownBeat Critics Poll
Look Inside
Subscribe
Print | Digital | iPad