Jim Pepper

Jim Pepper (born June 18, 1941, Salem, Oregon, U.S.—died February 10, 1992, Portland, Oregon) was an American saxophonist, singer, and composer known for a musical style that fused various genres of Native American music—including stomp dance, peyote music, and intertribal powwow music—with jazz, rock, country, and other popular music styles.

Pepper was born into a mixed Native American household, his Creek mother and Kaw (Kansa) father having met during their employment at the Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon. Powwow dancing and tap dancing were among Pepper’s earliest musical experiences. He began to play musical instruments while in elementary school and eventually mastered the clarinet, the saxophone, and the flute. His paternal grandfather, meanwhile, introduced him to peyote music (music of the Native American Church), which also played a significant role in his musical development.

Pepper began his musical career by performing in a number of jazz bands in and around Portland, Oregon. In 1964 he moved to New York City, where he joined the Free Spirits, an early jazz-rock (fusion) ensemble that included Columbus (“Chip”) Baker and Larry Coryell (on both guitar and vocals), Chris Hills (bass), and Bob Moses (drums). The band released Out of Sight and Sound in 1967. Also that year Pepper, Baker, and Hills joined with Lee Reinoehl (organ and trumpet) as well as Jim Zitro and John Waller (both on drums) to form Everything Is Everything, another jazz-rock ensemble. The album Everything Is Everything was released in 1969 and featured “Witchi Tai To,” a peyote song that Pepper had arranged according to his own jazz, rock, and folk music sensibilities. Everything Is Everything’s recording of “Witchi Tai To” ultimately reached number 69 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in 1969, and the song remained popular into the 21st century among an international group of artists, including American folksingers Brewer & Shipley, Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, jazz-oriented world music ensembles Djabe (from Hungary) and Oregon (from the United States), and Native American (Creek) poet-saxophonist Joy Harjo.

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Pepper continued to blend elements of Native American and popular music styles on four studio albums that he recorded as a leader. Pepper’s Pow Wow (1971) included his own compositions alongside stomp dance songs, which featured a mixed chorus accompanied by a shaker, and powwow songs, identifiable by various combinations of male voices, accompanied by drumming. On Comin’ and Goin’ (1983) Pepper revisited and reworked material from Pepper’s Pow Wow with various collaborators, including jazz trumpeter Don Cherry and multi-instrumentalist and world music artist Collin Walcott. On his final two albums, Dakota Song (1987) and The Path (1988), Pepper juxtaposed his interpretations of jazz standards, such as “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” and “Hello Young Lovers,” with compositions that reflected his experience as a Native American, such as “Dakota Song,” based on a Dakota (Sioux) love song, and “Caddo Revival,” based on a Native church hymn from the southeastern United States. During the course of his career, Pepper performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa and worked as a jazz sideman with Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Paul Motian, among others.

Following his death from lymphoma in 1992, Pepper received a number of awards in recognition of his contributions to music and to the Native American heritage. He received a Lifetime Musical Achievement Award from First Americans in the Arts in 1999, and he was inducted into the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame in 2000 and into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame in 2007. Also in 2007 Pepper’s family donated his saxophone and other musical memorabilia to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.