The poet was, of course, playing it safe. Because what the society of his time, and, indeed, the world at large was engaged in, as now and forever, was the process of constant change.

In the context of the world of jazz though, Tennyson's phrase "ringing grooves of change" seems oddly apt when applied to much of the jazz record output these days and the changing styles of the players.

Alto saxophonist Art Pepper is a perfect case in point.

A little more than five years ago, Pepper said that Zoot Sims was "the most natural, swinging musician I've ever heard. I think I could achieve complete satisfaction playing with him in a small group. Add Miles [Davis] for the third horn, and going to work each night would be the ultimate."

Perhaps Pepper still feels this way about Sims. The point is, though, he shows no inclination to speak of the tenorist anymore. At least the altoist did not so incline in a recent interview that centered about Pepper's present approach to improvisation and the reasons for his radical switch from the style identified with him for the last 15 years to the rawly emotional outbursts on his horn to which he exposed audiences at Shelly Manne-Hole in Hollywood recently.

John Coltrane appears to have displaced Zoot Sims as Pepper's current weathervane and symbol of continuing change. And the altoist makes an emotional case for the switch.

Since returning to active playing (he had been serving a jail term for violation of narcotics laws), Pepper said he has had laymen come to him and complain that the saxophone has been "destroyed" for them with the advent of the Coltranes, the Eric Dolphys, and the Charles Lloyds. Stan Getz, Pepper said, is held as paragon by such persons; Getz plays "pretty" and "right." The others, according to the objectors, he went on, sound as if they are mutilating the saxophone.

Pepper disputed this. "You listen to Coltrane," he argued, "on that spiritual he recorded, and it's the most beautiful thing in the world. As far as anybody knowing how to play a saxophone, all you have to do is go back to his old recordings. I don't see how anyone, including Bird, could possibly run through changes the way Coltrane did on that record. He's just a master on the instrument." The performance Pepper referred to is "Spiritual," included on the album John Coltrane Live At The Village Vanguard..

"When he does things that sound 'ugly,'" Pepper continued, "he may make just a squall, or just a double-octave sound or something. It's just an emotional thing; it's not meant to be pretty. If he wanted to play pretty--that is, if he had a 'pretty' emotion going--he would play pretty. But he doesn't play that way; he feels emotional.

"It's a thing of the times. You're ridding yourself of frustration, of hatred, suppression, every other thing. It's just complete freedom of expression."

He qualified the last statement, though. "It's not completely free, naturally, but it's certainly much more free and much more rewarding and true, and it's a much more honest feeling of the person playing. You're hearing him as he really is; much more so than you ever did before. When the occasion warrants playing beautiful, he'll play beautiful. When it's supposed to be just a swinging, kind of funky little thing, he'll do that too. There are all kinds of facets. It's endless."

If all this would appear to indicate that the musical change in Pepper is fundamental, he denies that it is particularly new to him. He insisted he had been trying to change his playing from his "earliest beginnings" on the horn. The major qualitative change, however, he said came about as "natural" and "just a combination of hearing the things that I had done with my finding out so many things that I didn't like and then just changing these things." He paused.

"When I don't change anymore," he pointed ou