Straight Life - Art Pepper [276]
Ed agreed to a live date but warned that the maximum studio time we could afford with the strings was two days. So Art would have to do it quickly and right because, live, there'd be too much leakage all over the place to do any editing. Ed wanted to use the rhythm section he'd put together for the Art Pepper Today album. Art agreed to Stanley Cowell on piano and Cecil McBee on bass, but he asked especially for Carl Burnett on drums. We had hoped to have maybe a flute, maybe an oboe, but we couldn't afford it. Ed said he thought it might be good to have Howard Roberts play guitar.
This was in August. We left Ed to go on a short tour up the coast to Seattle. At the end of the month Art had a weeklong gig at a hotel in Phoenix-with a house band. We would fly directly from Phoenix to Berkeley to do the string album. I strongly suggested to Art that we take Milcho Leviev with us to Phoenix. I reasoned that with Milcho, Art would have a chance to practice playing "Our Song," the ballad he'd just written for the album, and he could also practice "Winter Moon," which he hadn't played in years. Milcho came along, and they did play the tunes. And there was a bonus. One morning Milcho came to our room with a chart. He said he'd been taping some of the sets, and he'd taped a little blues riff Art had played last night, and he liked it so much he'd transcribed it. That was the tune that became "Melolev" on One September Afternoon, the quintet album which was made in one day, the day after the strings went home. Art was not drinking or smoking or arguing with anybody. He wasn't talking much. He wrote a few tunes.
We flew to Berkeley on September 2nd, and on September 3rd and 4th they taped the album. I don't remember which was the first tune, but I do remember Art standing in front of the mike, ready to rehearse it. The strings played an introduction, and Art was supposed to come in, but he didn't. Bill Holman turned to Art who just grinned at him and apologized. Art said that he was listening to the strings, and they sounded so beautiful, he just forgot to play.
Winter Moon got great reviews. (Art rarely got bad reviews. The critics, worldwide, either liked or loved him. Remarks on his performances and recordings ranged from "darkly lyrical" and "brilliantly crisp" to "demon jazz god" and "celestial.") Artie Shaw called to say how much he liked it. He was one of Art's heros. Art had never met him. Art said, in Don's movie, that Winter Moon was the best album he'd ever made, that "Our Song" was the most beautiful song he'd ever written, and that his solo on that tune was the best solo he'd ever recorded.
But he hadn't yet recorded the Maiden Voyage albums.
On August 13th, 14th, and 15th of 1981, Art was recorded live at an L.A. club called the Maiden Voyage with George, David, and Carl. Four albums have been released from that session, Roadgame, Art Lives, APQ, and Arthur's Blues. I think they're phenomenal.
Well, it was Art's band. George grew more graceful and perfect every day, Carl, consistent and serene, was our anchor, and then there was our bassist, David Williams, a slender, elegant Trinidadian with perfect manners who was capable of daring leaps of precarious invention at the most critical moments. Art was inspired by his musicianship and admiringly deplored his personal, social style, which was both cagey and reckless.
Art was well aware, while he was doing the date, how wonderful it was. John Overton owned the sound truck which housed the recording equipment for the date. It was parked in the club lot. He wrote me, after Art died, that he'd always treasure the memory of the night Art climbed up into the truck during a break one evening and listened to a playback of "But Beautiful." "And then," John wrote, "he was so delighted, he began to dance to it."
So much was recorded that Ed asked Art to listen to all of it and make careful notes on each selection. Art did that, twice. He knew it