Straight Life - Art Pepper [263]
... Pepper, above all, is an architect of emotion .... [He] has proved the best show of 1977 in jazz .... The Chicago Reader, July 29, 1977.
(Marty Paich) You know, there's honest musicians and there's dishonest musicians. Let me clarify that: An honest musician, to me, plays with his heart and soul and gives you his all, all the time. And then there's the dishonest musician who plays, and he gives you his all, but not all of the time. It's like a race horse. When Art plays, it's all, all the time. I never heard him lay back at any time, and that, to me, is an honest musician. And there aren't too many of them in the entire world.
(Don Menza) There are a lot of pressures on an honest player like Art, pressures of having to create and perform. Some musicians ... Dizzy Gillespie can be a clown, make it look as if it's really easy and fun. However a lot of people don't have that outlet, and when things really get bad on the stage, they don't know how to grab a handle on it, how to hold it together. Dizzy can just loosen up immediately. And then there are people that do the total opposite; there are the Charlie Minguses ... take the bass and break it over the piano player's back, you know? You know what I'm talking about? But Art, I've seen him get super tense and not be able to really say what he wants to say, or say what he means, and I could see his knuckles turning white and see his color drain. And still not be able to cope with it. Maybe that's got something to do with his other problems. He's a super sensitive cat, and that shows in his playing. It's obvious. You listen to him play a ballad or a pretty lyrical song. A certain style is involved in that kind of playing. You can't be a cold-hearted bastard and be able to play that way. It's very obvious the kind of person he is underneath, regardless of what he may have been doing at one time or another. And I don't have on record, I don't know of anybody saying, "He turned around and beat me for this; he beat me for that." Anybody. Everybody feels bad that it hasn't worked out better than it already has for him.
(Shelly Manne) Musicians should really sit down by themselves and realize what a great life they have. They're doing something they want to do. They're being creative. Very few people have an outlet for their creativity. They're getting paid for it, and, when gifted, get paid very well for it. They can travel all over the world, expenses paid. They eat the best food in the world. They have it made, especially when they have talent and are available and working. To destroy that by being irresponsible, unreliable, which are the main reasons that guys end up down the tubes .. .
What the hell. Art's playing because he wants to play. Hopefully, to make a great living. Hopefully, to be accepted by his peers. But he gets to that point, and when he's at that point it destroys him. He's got to turn his head around. He's got to realize that all those people write about him and there's a resurgence of Art Pepper because they love him. That's not a hate relationship. That's a love relationship. They dig what he's doing. They dig what he's been through. They understand what he's been through. And to see him come back and play great, that's what they want. That's why they're paying money at the door to come in. That's why they go to the concerts, write an article in the New Yorker, whatever the hell, about Art. Those are love things. People