Jim Pepper was a Native American saxophonist, born in Salem, Oregon, on June 18, 1941. Pepper was best known for his rich "post-Coltrane" wailing tone, founding the band The Free Spirits, being an early pioneer of Jazz fusion and extensively incorporating indigenous traditions into his Jazz music.

Creek was raised near Portland, Oregon, and his early musical influences consisted of powwow chants and Native American Church peyote chants. At a young age, he was known as a virtuosic tap dancer, powwow dancer, saxophonist and clarinetist. Pepper's saxophone style was also greatly influenced by early avant-garde jazz artists such as John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. In 1964, Pepper moved to New York to become make his name as a Jazz saxophonist. He went on to found The Free Spirits, and his myriad of creative influences, from jazz to the early rock of the late 60s and 70s, led him and his group to be one of the first to pioneer Fusion: a combination of Jazz, Rock and other world genres.

Pepper was Creek indigenous, and his indigenous culture has a long connection to Jazz. The sister of Duke Ellington once said that “All the credit’s gone to the African for the wonderful rhythm in jazz, but I think a lot of it should go to the American Indian.” Early African American slaves were brought to the territory of the Muscogee people, and the blues and eventually Jazz rhythms which they would go onto create were highly influenced by rhythms of indigenous music.

When the Free Spirits Disbanded, Pepper was persuaded by legendary trumpeter Don Cherry (of Choctaw Indigenous heritage) and saxophonist Ornette Coleman to incorporate more of his indigenous influences into his Jazz playing. Pepper went on to release solo albums such as "Pepper's Powwow" and "Com'n and Going", which combined powwow singing, indigenous flutes and rock with Pepper's visceral saxophone soloing. These albums become wildly popular crossover hits, hitting top 40 pop charts, and have become his best known work.

Despite his instrumental and creative prowess as well as his all-American combination of rock, African American Jazz and indigenous music, Pepper was under-appreciated by his American audience . He lived out his final days in Austria, where audiences were more receptive to his art-form, before passing away on February 10, 1992. Pepper was posthumously granted the Lifetime Musical Achievement Award by First Americans in the Arts (FAITA) in 1999, and in 2000 he was inducted into the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame at the 7th Annual NAMMY Awards ceremony. In 2005, the Leroy Vinnegar Jazz Institute and the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission named Pepper Jazz Musician of the Year at the Portland Jazz Festival. His sheet music and horn were donated to the Smithsonian Museum. Jazz fusion lives on as the most pioneered form of jazz, with an ever-expanding window of cultural influences.

While Pepper was truly an indigenous role model through his raising awareness of indigenous American music he also will always serve as a role model for any musician who strives to seamlessly blend their cultural influences and technical ability to create something unique and timeless.

Here is Pepper's biggest hit,"Witchi-Tai-To" :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g61jZ1rplSE