Straight Life - Art Pepper [101]
I thought about Patti all the time. Patti would call me. She even came to visit me once. She came at about 8:30, when I was still in bed. I heard a knock on the door and, "It's me, Patti." I didn't have a robe so I threw my pants on. I didn't have any shirt on, no shoes. I opened the door and there she is. She walks in and she's wearing one of those flaring skirts with the pattern all bright. She's wearing a blouse that's cut down off the shoulders, and you can see the vee of her breasts. She had on pretty pink sandals, and her hair was fixed beautifully, and she smelled wonderful. Here's the woman I would have given anything to have had, I thought. She divorced me to marry someone else. We talked; it was awful; then she left. But she kept calling me, and she was hanging up everything for me as far as anybody else. I couldn't imagine how, under any circumstances, she could have married someone else. Why weren't we married? I loved her so much. I wanted her so much.
Right at this time I made an album. I think it was The Return of Art Pepper. I was recording a lot and playing beautifully. Diane kept coming around and coming around, and she finally talked me into going to her house one day. I met her husband. He told me that nothing was happening with them, that it was all over. He loved her, but she didn't care for him. They had a beautiful house in Burbank with a great big swimming pool.
One day Diane came to my hotel and said, "I'm getting a room. Would you please let me get a room with you?" I was scuffling. I'd started to use. I got weak. I said okay. The thought of having a car ... I just got weak. I'd told her all along that nothing was happening, that I was still in love with Patti, that it would take me a long time to get over it. She said, "I just want to be with you. I love you and I want to take care of you. I don't care how you feel about me. I'm happy being with you."
We moved to a house. I think it was on Fargo, on an incredibly steep hill. And it was nice at times, but the minute I moved in with Diane, Patti found out about it. Among musicians everything is known. She called: "I don't know why you want to live with that woman! She had two kids and a husband and left them. She's a tramp!"
PEPPER BACK; DATES PILE UP
Hollywood-After a 20-month absence from the jazz scene, altoist Art Pepper is once more active here. He has joined forces with composer-arranger-tenorist Jack Montrose and will record, work with, and go on the road with a new Montrose quintet.
In the offing are record dates for three labels on which Pepper will be featured-a Pepper-Chet Baker album for Pacific jazz; an LP for Liberty on which the alto man will play with Montrose and Red Norvo; a further album for Atlantic to be recorded this month.
Montrose told down beat he intends to use Pepper on his soon-tobe-recorded jazz ballet, which will be released later in the year on Pacific jazz, after which the two hornmen plan to travel east with a rhythm section.
Pepper's first gig after his long absence was a date at Paul Nero's The Cottage in Malibu June 29. down beat, July 25, 1956. Copyright 1956 by down beat. Reprinted by special permission.
ART PEPPER ... TELLS TRAGIC ROLE NARCOTICS PLAYED IN BLIGHTING HIS CAREER AND LIFE by John Tynan
"At the end of 1954 I was using 40 caps of heroin a day. . . "
This is not a random quotation from some detective thriller, nor is it to be found in the text or script of The Man with the Golden Arm. These tragic words were spoken by altoist Art Pepper in an exclusive interview conducted July 20, 1956, in the Hollywood offices of down beat a few weeks after Pepper was released from the federal penitentiary on Terminal Island, Calif. He had just finished