ART: (music mentioned in) Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman (11 Tracks)

by Art Pepper

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rick0361 I am currently reading “Straight Life” and it is one hell of a roller coaster ride in terms of the life of Art Pepper.
The one thing that can’t be denied though is his incredible talent and the beautiful music he made.
His music continues to give so much in its versatility Favorite track: Patricia.

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1.	What's New? by Haggart-Burke 04:08	lyrics
From the Memoir: Like the princess in the fairy tale, Art wept diamonds, pearls.
2.	Ophelia 07:54	lyrics
From the Memoir: It's a composition that illustrates Art’s genius for a dramatic structured narrative and embodies, in the actual chart, as no standard could, all Art’s morphing ambiguities of mood, his subtlety, mystery, and sweetness, his solid, swinging funkiness, and the chaos in his rage. It also maps the full range of his musical experience, from blues and swing to bebop and beyond, his evolution as an artist. Before I heard “Ophelia,” I’d based my respect for Art on the opinions of others and then on the effect on me of his beauty and swing. Now Art’s music was teaching me how to listen and what to listen for.
3.	Samba Mom Mom 08:19	lyrics
From the Memoir: ...in spite of its title, not a samba, but (as Shelly pointed out) a “Latinish, islandy” piece of rollicking whimsicality that, likewise, pulled you from your chair and made you jump and wiggle. The two and a half years of playing tenor for dancing in Synanon (“Watermelon Man” and funky simple stuff like that) had pushed Art away from what I’ve always considered the bebop head-trip and back to his rowdy, crowd-pleasing roots on Central Avenue where music had to do with dancing, with the body’s response to the beat of the blood.
4.	Goodbye by Gordon Jenkins 12:15	lyrics
From the Memoir: If there is any track on any album that sums up the beauty and power of Art’s triumphant soul, his gift, it’s the “Goodbye” he played that night and dedicated to his old friend, Hampton Hawes, who’d just died. For me it’s the strongest and most passionate performance he ever gave. I’ve heard Art tell an audience that playing jazz was like an exorcism. He summoned up his demons to demolish them. He mined his pain, confusion, desperation, anger, grief (also his passion, tenderness, and joy), to triumph in his music. He used his emotional past, hectic present, and his terrible fears and wild hopes about the future to connect with his listeners. He gave form to their feeling. He was an artist, and he won the battle every time. He won it at the Vanguard.
5.	Patricia 10:23	lyrics
From the Memoir: During a break, Stanley was fooling around at the piano and he started playing a gorgeous ballad. A few people looked up, because it was so pretty. Art, in all innocence, remarked that it was really nice, what was it? He probably hadn’t listened to it for more than thirty years. When Stanley said that it was Art’s tune, “Patricia” (written for his daughter), and offered that he liked it, Art decided to play it. They all went back into the studio. Art suggested that they do just a bluesy sort of coda, a long tag at the end. He looked dubiously at the guys, not sure whether they knew what he was talking about. They played the tune, and then Cecil McBee, the bassist, carried them into a gorgeous, funky, perfect ending. They finished, came into the studio, listened to the playback. Wow. Impressed silence. Roy Haynes broke it. To Art: “Where did you say you were from?” Art: “Gardena, California.” Roy: “Is that South Gardena?”
6.	Patricia (live Atlanta) 15:51	lyrics
From the Memoir: I have some live examples ontape (one, especially, recorded in Atlanta, 1980) that are just asgood. On the Atlanta tape I have Art’s remarks, verbatim, to the audience, when he concluded that performance, thanking themfor their applause and cheers: “It’s really, uh. Ohhh. Oh, music is so beautiful. I almost cried during that song. It was just so beautiful, and that everyone was following where we were going with it... It’s a whole, a whole life happening in that song. It’s great that you feel what’s happening. And that’s all I can say; that’s it.” Then his voice breaks when he adds, “That’s jazz.”
7.	Our Song 05:32	lyrics
From the Memoir: Winter Moon got great reviews. (Well, Art never got bad ones. The critics, worldwide, either liked or loved him. Remarks on his performances and recordings ranged from “darkly lyrical” and “brilliantly crisp” to “demon jazz god” and “celestial.”) Art said, in the documentary Don McGlynn made about him, that Winter Moon was the best album he’d ever made, that “Our Song” was the most beautiful song he’d ever written, and that his solo on that tune was the best solo he’d ever recorded.
8.	Landscape 17:11
9.	The Prisoner by Lawrence, Desautels 06:46	lyrics
From the Memoir: I spat into his ear, “It stinks! It’s weak. It’s terrible. You’ve gotta give it more.” He groaned to me about the stupid, useless chart, saying that he’d done the best he could. But he went in for one last try. A jazz soloist, especially a guy like Art, is, first of all, a listener. Ask any band he ever played with. His art is to work “in concert” with the arrangement and the other players, and to comment on and build on what the music’s saying, creating something new and individual, yet still harmonious. He must complete the piece. And good musicians, playing with him, live, would be inspired by him, by what he was creating, and rise to the occasion. But in this case, and despite the live setting, the musicians couldn’t follow him. The chart they had to play was written: set and static. Who knows what mental trick Art used to wrench himself away from an improvising jazzman’s lifelong understanding and to rise above it? But he did it. He dragged himself out of the quicksand of that chart, ignoring it, at last, relying just on what he heard inside. It sounded as if he was ripping his own guts out in the studio. He was magnificent, and when he heard the take he knew it. He loved it. And I still love to listen to it. A friend recently talked about good black gospel churches, how they sometimes have nurses, even ambulances there for people who, through the preaching and singing, are kayoed by the Spirit. Art could blast you just that way, and he does it for a while, if you’re at all susceptible, when he plays “The Prisoner” on Winter Moon.
10.	When You're Smiling by Shay, Fisher, Goodwin 08:05	lyrics
From the Memoir: “I’m not done yet,” we all heard Art say. “I got more time. I want to play another song.” The audience began a chant of “more!” “I’m not finished,” Art repeated. “I want to play just one more song.” They’d made a mistake. Some of “our” time had been taken up by festival announcements. Art walked to the wings, again pointing at his watch. The audience was getting mad, but the invisible personage persuaded Art to end his set. Art walked back to center stage, asked the audience to take the disappointment graciously as he would try to do. He thanked them all and said goodbye. “When You’re Smiling” was the last song he ever played. He played it on the clarinet, on his first horn, in his youngest voice, and said he wasn’t done. Nine days later Art was in a coma. Six days after that he died.
11.	Goin' Home A. Dvořák (arr. G. Cables) 05:30	lyrics
From the Memoir: Ed Michel did what I asked and brought and played the tapes. We all heard Art play “Goin’ Home.” Home is heaven, what the soul returns to. “Goin’ Home” is what Art wrote sometimes at the ends of his charts. It meant go back to the beginning and then end the song.

about

BUY THE BOOK THAT GOES WITH THE MUSIC: bit.do/lauriesbook
These are specific tracks I talk about in my memoir. I figure most people are like me, they want to see pictures of the people named in books (so I've got lots of pictures) and they want to hear the music, too. And, like me, they might be a little lazy and not want to ramble through the internet, looking for these specific pictures and tracks. So here's a selection just for readers, just for reference. (All tracks but one were beautifully, professionally recorded, & I've licensed them from the companies that own them).

credits

released May 27, 2014

With George Cables, Stanley Cowell, Milcho Leviev, Hampton Hawes, Charlie Haden, David Williams, Cecil McBee, Bob Magnusson, Shelly Manne, Carl Burnett, Gary Frommer

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about

Art Pepper Los Angeles, California

Born in 1925 in Gardena, CA, and raised in San Pedro, CA. Incredible life can't be summarized here! Read all about it in STRAIGHT LIFE at Amazon. Read what it was like being married to him in ART: Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman. Amazon ditto.

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