Straight Life - Art Pepper [270]
Once, during the book tour, when I asked Art after an interview why he seemed to have taken such an obvious dislike to the interviewer, he gave me this classic reply: "He wasn't reverent enough." Well, Ed Michel has never been reverent enough-toward anyone, about anything. Even though I still had warm feelings for him from the past, I didn't think he deserved to produce Art's albums. I told Ralph I didn't think he was the best person for the job.
Ralph smiled. He said, "Well, let's go and talk to him. I think you'll like him." We talked to him. Ed can be really charming when he feels like it. He felt like it. Art liked him well enough. I was reconciled. Ed became Art's producer and was the shrewd and patient guiding force behind some of the best work Art ever did.
(Ed told me later that when Ralph informed him he was signing Art, Ed said, "What do you want to do that for? He's a great player, but he's nuts. Why do you want all that trouble?" I asked Ed what Ralph said to that. Ed said Ralph smiled.)
These were some of the key creative relationships of Art's last years. John Snyder promoted and sponsored the '77 East Coast tour which put Art back on the scene. And the magnificent Contemporary recordings of Art at the Village Vanguard were made possible largely through his efforts. He also produced what turned out to be four of Art's great late recordings (So In Love, Artworks, The New York Album and Stardust). Ed Michel produced most (but not all) of the rest of them. Ralph Kaffel gave Art the support and security he required. Another creative relationship was the one Art had with George Cables.
Les had brought George in to play piano for Art's The Trip album and for the one that followed it, No Limit, in 1977. After that Art worked with George, locally, whenever he could, and in 1979, I managed to hire George away from Freddie Hubbard for our third and so-far biggest tour of Japan. (Three terrific albums eventually came out of that tour, Landscape, Besame Mucho, and Tokyo Encore). Art loved the way George played and compared him to his all-time favorite pianist, Wynton Kelly. I have a series of snapshots of Art listening to George solo in a nightclub. First, listening raptly, eyes closed. Then staring with amazed delight. Then, gesturing to the audience, "Did you hear that? Isn't he incredible?" George is probably also one of the sweetest people on earth. He's a decorous man, but he's an affectionate man. Art was always afraid to touch people, but he loved to be hugged, patted, and pushed by those open and generous people, like George, who are able to do that sort of thing. George has an empathetic, tender heart, and it comes out in his music, and Art responded to him on every level. In those years George was irresponsible and late, late all the time. It didn't matter. Art was overjoyed to see him when he showed. One of my nicknames for George was "Monsignor," and George told me that, in fact, when he was young he'd planned to be a preacher. George is just good. And George is black, and that was really important to Art.
The scrap of poetry at the beginning of STRAIGHT LIFE comes from one of Ezra Pound's translations-of a poem called "Exile's Letter." The whole poem seemed apropos to me, because in Art's view he had been exiled, by color, from his own world, the world of jazz.
He was hanging out, actually working on Central Avenue from age fourteen. He was accepted and admired in a world he loved. Then he was suddenly rejected by that world. That's how he saw it, at age 18, when he experienced