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Here’s Pete with the weather
Spontaneous jazz for all seasons.
By Jim Irvin.
Autumn almanac: the inside cover of Pete Jolly’s alluring Seasons LP.
IN 1970, THE starkly beautiful image of a giant, autumnal aspen leaf hinted that Pete Jolly’s Seasons ★★★★ (Future Days Recordings) might be different from his previous releases. Indeed, the record inside came as a surprise even to the people who made it.
Jolly (born Peter Ceragioli Jr), was a highly respected pianist who’d worked with Art Pepper, Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, and been reasonably prolific under his own banner with a string of albums for RCA and CBS – starting in 1955 when he was 23. Musician and label boss Herb Alpert spotted him at Sherry’s, a nightclub on Sunset Boulevard, and, deeply impressed by his sensitive playing, produced and endorsed Jolly’s 1968 debut for A&M, a collection of standards, which went largely unnoticed, as did its follow-up in 1969. When time came for a third roll of the dice, Alpert opted to shake things up.