Pepper, Jim

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Pepper, Jim

Pepper, Jim, jazz flutist, saxophonist; b. Portland, Ore., June 17, 1941; d. there, Feb. 10, 1992. Pepper began tap dancing as a youth in Portland. His father played saxophone and he took up clarinet then saxophone. He played and recorded in Free Spirits with Larry Coryell and Bob Moses (1967) then joined Everything is Everything (1970). Through the 1980s, he worked with various leaders, including Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orch. (1982) and Paul Motion, as well as leading his own groups. Amina Myers played with him in Austria 1991. He had Kaw Indian blood; his best-known composition, “Witchi Tai Toe,” was based on an Indian chant.

Discography

Pepper’s Pow Wow (1971); Comin’ and Goin’ (1984); Dakota Sound (1987); Path (1988); West End Avenue (1989); Camargue (1989).

—Lewis Porter