Straight Life - Art Pepper [257]
Moving in with Laurie was a great help to me too. I still wasn't completely honest with her, and we had some hassles, but I was doing the best I could except for drinking. That really became a problem. Finally, one day, Laurie moved out. She said she wouldn't come back until I stopped. I realized what the drinking was doing to my health. I consented to take antabuse. If you drink while you're taking antabuse, you get terribly sick. It looked like all I'd be able to do was take methadone and smoke-cigarettes. I don't like marijuana anymore. It makes me nervous. I was buying extra methadone from Ann and John twice a week. I stopped drinking to excess. Every now and then, I'd stop taking the antabuse and goof. I always felt awful afterwards.
(Ann Christos) Art was working at the bakery in Venice. Someone told us he was there so John and I drove out to see him. A few days later he called and asked us if we could score for him. He came to Hollywood in that little tiny car. John and I were both on the state methadone program, but we did score for him-and for ourselves. That was the only time, and the stuff had no effect on us; we thought we'd been burned. But Art fell out. The methadone was just blocking the heroin; it was doing its job. Not long after that we drove out to the bakery again to give Art some methadone. Laurie was there. That's the first time we met her and she was very cold. I told John I understood why. She thought we were leading Art astray, but actually we thought that meth would be good for him. John was trying to convince him to get on the program. We thought it would be his salvation.
Art was quiet-like I've always known him to be when he's not working in music and hasn't anything in sight. Lethargic. No goals. No pleasure in anything. We would talk to him at times, though, and get laughs out of him. When you get Art goin', you know, he's funny. Even after he got on the program he'd come to buy meth a couple of times a week, and we used to look forward to his coming down. It was time to talk and crack up. We saw a lot of him, and our relationship with Laurie grew. We saw the way she was handling him. He was stagnating, playing those Jewish weddings. Actually I think Laurie's the one that pulled him to the fore. I think it was all her energy that got it together. Laurie's very feminine. She's very petite, pretty, with china doll features. She has a bright, bright smile and a keen mind. She wouldn't cater to Art or indulge his depressive attitude. She just soared right on ahead, kept on cookin'. She sort of turned it around and laughed at all his little woe-isms.
LAURIE pushed me, in music, and she took care of a lot of things I couldn't deal with-arranging the clinics, writing to the colleges, answering the phone. When the phone rings I get terrified. I never know what it's going to be. She shielded me from a lot of people from my past. . . so that I wouldn't get involved with them.
We had lived in Venice, which we loved very much, but the place was tiny, and our rent kept going up, and I was getting so much work. We decided to move to the valley. That's where all the musicians are stationed. The valley is a great point of departure. We found a little frame house, very reasonable rent, and we've been there ever since.
In 1975, Les and I got together again, and we made a new album, Living Legend. I was very proud of that. In 1976, Don Ellis, the trumpeter and bandleader, called me and asked me if I'd like to join his band. It was an extremely modern band with a lot of amplified and electronic instruments. And instead of just four beats to the bar, like all jazz music, except for 3/4 waltz time, his arrangements would be in 5/4, 7/4, 9/8. It was difficult