1. |
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From the Memoir:
Like the princess in the fairy tale, Art wept diamonds, pearls.
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2. |
Ophelia
07:54
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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.
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3. |
Samba Mom Mom
08:19
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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.
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4. |
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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.
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5. |
Patricia
10:23
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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?”
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6. |
Patricia (live Atlanta)
15:51
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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.”
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7. |
Our Song
05:32
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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.
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8. |
Landscape
17:11
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9. |
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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.
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10. |
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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.
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11. |
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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.
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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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