Siletz Bay Music Festival will celebrate the musical legacy of the late Portland-based composer and alto sax player, Jim Pepper, with a concert that will feature his former bandmate, Gordon Lee and a sextet that will include another former Pepper bandmate, guitarist JB Butler.
Jim Pepper (Kaw, Creek) was a ground-breaker, a master of musical fusion, who drew upon his Native American heritage and his love of jazz to create an exhilarating body of work that has slowly begun to be fully appreciated. Before his passing in 1992, Pepper had collaborated with such luminaries as Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Chick Corea, Bill Frisell, Charlie Haden, Billy Cobham and Dewey Redman. His recording of “Wichitai To,” an adaption of a Kaw Indian chant, became the first and only Native American-language song to reach the Billboard pop charts and has been covered by scores of artists ranging from Motown’s The Supremes to drummer/pianist Jack DeJohnette.
“Jim Pepper was the first human being to put traditional Indian chants and melodies together with Gospel style harmony and performances by jazz musicians. It was a very complex stew and it worked against all preconceptions from the music industry,” says Lee, who began playing with Pepper in 1978 and became a frequent collaborator during the years that followed, performing and recording together off and on in groups led sometimes by Pepper, sometimes by Lee.