Straight Life - Art Pepper [142]
Again, reflecting on what a future narcotics arrest would mean, Pepper told this writer a year and half later (down beat, Jan. 9, 1958), "I think of the progressive steps that'll result from my goofing. First of all, I consider, the narcotics detail gets the word and before long I get picked up. This has got to happen; there's no escape. Then I get sent up for maybe 30, 40 years. My record takes care of that. I think about never again seeing my wife, my friends ... never again being able to play, which is the thing I want to do more than anything else. Well, by the time I'm through with this line of thought, I'm shaking with fear, so scared that the feeling (for a fix) is gone."
Somewhere along the line this fear was conquered-by heroin.
And to the last, to the time of his final arrest on Oct. 25, Pepper's emotional defense mechanism against the outrages of the mess that had become his life went to bat for him. He told arresting officers MacCarville and Sanchez, they said, that he felt he was still a young man, and he figured when he got out of prison, he'd still have his life before him.
Earlier this year, Pepper had begun to reassert himself on record dates as the superlative musician he is. He had begun to make his own albums once more, and it was unanimously agreed by all who heard them that the altoist was expressing himself as he never had before. His horn was heard on a variety of albums recorded for several labels and on the sound track of the motion picture, The Subterrraneons. Things were at last beginning to look up for Art Pepper.
His friend and constant collaborator, Marty Paich, was responsible for much of the unveiling of the "new" Art Pepper. Paich constantly called him for record dates, and last spring told this writer, "I feel the situation between Art and myself is similar to that between Miles Davis and Gil Evans. We understand each other." Paich described the altoist as a musician "of the utmost jazz caliber. There's no one else I would write for because the minute he hears the background, he makes an immediate adjustment to the arrangement." Paich summarized his feelings by declaring, "Art Pepper is probably one of the most dedicated musicians I know. He just lives for that horn."
What Paich did not know at the time he made the statement was that there was a compulsion driving his friend more overpowering than music, than the loss of heaven and the fear of hell, than eating or sleeping, than love or hate, than life or death-the craving and the physiological and psychological need of heroin.
When told of Pepper's arrest, a stunned Marty Paich could only comment haltingly, "During the last few months, I used him on record dates a few times, and he acted awfully weird. I tried to talk to him about it, but it didn't seem to do any good."
Ironically, Paich had been trying to reach Pepper the week of his arrest. He wanted to use the altoist on another record date. But there is no phone in tank 11D-2.
For this gentle, introverted, mentally tortured artist and for all the Art Peppers, society has sanctioned a law-"Thou shalt not find this way out." Because he sought whatever release heroin brings, and found in it his personal panacea, this musician became a criminal in the eyes of the law. And the law is absolute.
To the officers who arrested him, to the judge who may send him to prison for the rest of his life, to Federal Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger, who has expressed contempt for all addicts, the life of Art Pepper may be summed up by the cynicism, "file closed on one junkie." To those who appreciated and were fulfilled by his music, it must be, "File closed on one artist." down beat, December 8, 1960. Copyright 1960 by down beat. Reprinted by special permission.
(Ann Christos) I first met Art at the Lighthouse. Actually, back in Minnesota my husband, a musician, used to listen to his records and he'd say, "Now, listen here! This is Art Pepper!"