Surf Ride

Limited vinyl LP pressing of this 1952 album by the jazz great. The album features Pepper working with three separate West Coast groups including musical assistance from Russ Freeman and Hampton Hawes (piano), Jack Montrose (tenor), Joe Mondragon and Monte Budwig (bass) and drummers Larry Bunker and Bobby White. By the 1950s Pepper was recognized as one of the leading alto saxophonists in jazz, finishing second only to Charlie Parker as Best Alto Saxophonist in the Down Beat magazine Readers Poll of 1952. Along with Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan and Shelly Manne, and perhaps due more to geography than playing style, Pepper is often associated with the musical movement known as West Coast jazz, as contrasted with the East Coast (or "hot") jazz of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis.