The title of this recording,
Smack Up is ironic and inadvertently truthful. Within a short period,
Art Pepper would begin spending many years in jail due to his heroin addiction; this was his next-to-last album from that period. Despite the bleak future, the great altoist (who never seemed to make an uninspired record during his unstable life) is in excellent form in a quintet with trumpeter
Jack Sheldon, pianist
Pete Jolly, bassist
Jimmy Bond, and drummer
Frank Butler. Highlights of this fine album include
Harold Land's title cut, the five/four blues "Las Cuevas de Mario," and
Ornette Coleman's "Tears Inside." [Some reissues add two takes of the otherwise unknown "Solid Citizens."]