Straight Life - Art Pepper [38]
The engagement, which was for several months at this hotel, came to an end, and we went back to London, and almost at the same time the military band that Art was playing with was disbanded because some of their members were being sent back on the priorities system. They broke it up and sent Art back with a few of the other guys to London, and, of all things, made Art an MP, which I don't think he was very happy about. He wasn't cut out for that kind of action.
London was really quite an exciting place to be in those days. There was a sort of free-for-all atmosphere. The war had taken away a lot of the stuffy social stigma that I remember England having before the war (I haven't lived in England for many, many years now). I know the war made people more together. They had nothing to lose so they had a good time. I know I did. Oh, there was rationing, and they had lots of bad air raids and that sort of thing, but generally life wasn't that bad.
My dad had a pub in London, which is only significant because good liquor was very hard to come by during the war, and my dad, having a pub, used to get a fairly good supply and would always keep a few back for me or himself or his friends. Whenever Art and the guys needed a drink, they'd just buzz me, and I could usually rustle something up. I was always amused when I'd get a phone call from Art sometime around midnight, and he'd say, "I can't take this MP thing. Have you got any gin?" I would say, "Yeah, I can get a bottle of gin." "Well, get in your car and meet me on the corner. . ," of Picadilly and something or other. I'd get in my car and park, and suddenly, out of the darkness, this small figure with a huge white hat would loom up, and it would be Art, and he'd take a quick look around and hop in the back of the car and dispose of about a half a bottle of gin, and he'd say, "Well, now I feel more like it." And back he'd go on the beat again. Studiously avoiding problems. He went the other way when he heard a fracas. He just wasn't interested, and I didn't blame him either.
The fellows came to my house on many occasions, and we used to sit 'til all hours of the morning playing records and getting boozed. On one occasion, one of the guys got hold of something that resembled grass, but I don't think it was. I didn't smoke anything, even ordinary cigarettes; I still don't, so I didn't participate. Fortunately. Because the other guys smoked whatever it was and were all violently ill and fell about the place. I don't think they tried it again.
Jazz was pretty hard to come by in London in those days, but there was this one place run by a man called Feldman who had three sons who were aspiring musicians-Robert, Victor, and Monte. Victor, who was then about ten, played the drums, and of course, it's the same Victor Feldman who's one of the top guys in the studio scene in Hollywood now. He played amazingly well as a child, and then took up vibes and piano, and, as you know, he's quite a giant.
Feldman's was the place where jazz happened, and Art would go there and sit in and play and, of course, made a tremendous impression on the musicians around him because his technique, his fluency, his complete command of his instrument, was far ahead of any of the other musicians