Straight Life - Art Pepper [43]
Once when I was interviewed for down beat they asked me about Stan, and I told the interviewer, "If Stan had entered the field of religion he would have been greater than Billy Graham." And Stan didn't like it. But he didn't understand it. Maybe he thought I was putting him down; maybe he thought I was belittling religion and ranking him for being a phony, but that wasn't my intention. I was talking about his strength. He was the strongest man I ever met.
I traveled with the band: Shelly Manne was playing drums; Conte Candoli was playing trumpet; Bud Shank was in the sax section; June Christy was singing; Laurindo Almeida was playing guitar; and I was featured with the band. We played a lot of different places, and I was getting a name, a following. At first Patti came along with me, so it was fun, but one day in New York, while we were working at the Paramount Theater, Patti got a telegram from my father saying that Patricia was sick. I don't remember what she had. I didn't even pay attention to it, I was so angry. To me it was as if Patricia had gotten sick purposely to rank things for me. So Patti left, and that was it. For all intents and purposes that was the end of our marriage. Patti started feeling it was her duty to stay with Patricia.
It was impossible to take Patricia with us. We tried to take her once to Salt Lake City. We drove instead of traveling on the bus. I bought a car, but all the oil ran out of the car, and we got stranded, and then Patricia got sick. It was impossible. It was too impossible. The mileage we had to cover was too demanding. They both went home, and I sold the car, and that was the last time Patti was on the road with me.
I really became bitter then because I was so lonely and I couldn't stand not having a woman. There were chicks following the band that were very groovy, that really dug me; they'd send notes and hit on me and wait for me after the job, but I'd rarely have anything to do with them because I felt so guilty when I did.
In 1948 we were playing the Paramount Theater again in New York. Vic Damone was the single attraction. Sometimes we'd play seven shows a day, and there were a bunch of young girls who used to come around to all the performances. One day after a show, four of these girls came backstage and left a note. They wanted to meet me. I went to the stage door and said hello to them. I brought them into the dressing room and talked to them; they were sixteen, seventeen. They said they wanted to form an Art Pepper Fan Club. Would I mind? I thought they were joking at first, but they were serious, so I told them no, I wouldn't mind, that I'd be flattered. But I couldn't understand what a fan club would entail.
We had just started at the Paramount. I think we played for thirteen weeks, and it was jam-packed. I was living at a hotel on Forty-seventh and Broadway, and these girls kept coming around so I'd take them out. We'd go to the drugstore. I'd buy them sandwiches, and they took pictures of me. They were fairly nice looking, and they must have been from the Bronx because they all had that accent. Finally they told me that they really cared for me, that they had a crush on me, and they would like to, you know-they'd work it out among themselves and come and visit me one at a time. I said okay, but I was thinking, "They're pretty young." And I didn't know for sure if that was what they wanted. The next day, the one they had elected president of the club was at the Paramount after the first show. This was in the morning, and we had two, two and a half hours between shows. She said, "Shall we go to your place?"
The president was about seventeen. She looked Jewish, and she had a slender body but nicely shaped. She had pretty eyes. She was the most attractive of the four, with lovely skin, dark coloring. We left for the hotel. The guys in the band were watching, giving me those looks.