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By Root 1386 0

lines of heroin and I took the dollar bill and horned the rest of them down. I said, "This is it. This is the only answer for me. If this is what it takes, then this is what I'm going to do, whatever dues I have to pay ..." And I knew that I would get busted and I knew that I would go to prison and that I wouldn't be weak; I wouldn't be an informer like all the phonies, the no-account, the nonreal, the zero people that roam around, the scum that slither out from under rocks, the people that destroyed music, that destroyed this country, that destroyed the world, the rotten, fucking, lousy people that for their own little ends-the black power people, the sickening, stinking motherfuckers that play on the fact that they're black, and all this fucking shit that happened later on-the rotten, no-account, filthy women that have no feeling for anything; they have no love for anyone; they don't know what love is; they are shallow hulls of nothingness-the whole group of rotten people that have nothing to offer, that are nothing, never will be anything, were never intended to be anything.

All I can say is, at that moment I saw that I'd found peace of mind. Synthetically produced, but after what I'd been through and all the things I'd done, to trade that misery for total happiness-that was it, you know, that was it. I realized it. I realized that from that moment on I would be, if you want to use the word, a junkie. That's the word they used. That's the word they still use. That is what I became at that moment. That's what I practiced; and that's what I still am. And that's what I will die as-a junkie.

(Hersh Hamel) We were playing at a place called Esther's in Hermosa Beach, and I was with Jack Montrose. Jack and I were friends. They used to have a session at this place almost every night, so we had gone down there to play, and Art came down, and we all enjoyed ourselves together. This must have been in the late forties. Art was serious about playing, liked to laugh; he was drinking, smoking pot. Art immediately hit it off with Jack and I, and we all decided to meet there again, and we did, on succeeding days. Art was very handsome at that time, lean and dark, black hair combed back, and very fastidious. Art was a very interesting player, swinging and very intense, sort of trying to do his own thing under the cloak of the strong sentiment and strong popularity of Charlie Parker. Art was trying to create a style of his own.

Art was married to Patti and they were living somewhere between Washington Boulevard and Adams in a nice, little place. Patti was a sort of naive girl who wasn't terribly interested in music, jazz. She was very pretty. She was blonde and very pretty. Very much a take-care-of-business type of girl. She did her thing. Around the house. Wasn't lazy. Sort of serious and not terribly talkative or friendly with any of the musicians. She had her own set of friends, whoever they were.

She was always nice to me, said hello, but Freddy Rivera-we got to know Freddy; he would always be around Art, you know, coming over to the house, and I got the impression that Patti didn't like Freddy, didn't like Freddy over there. Art wanted Freddy there. Art got a big kick out of Freddy. Found Freddy amusing. So, there was a little tension between Patti and Art about Freddy. As for me, when I came over and picked Art up or whatever it was, she was more friendly with me, but I felt I was still one of the musician friends of Art's.

Patti and Art seemed to be on different mind levels. They didn't seem to have the same likes and dislikes. There wasn't a great rapport between them, although, you know, Art seemed to love Patti. And Patti's ideas about the way a marriage should be didn't coincide with Art's. I don't think Art really thought about it that much. He was very involved with his music and his emotional ups and downs with his music. They took a great toll out of him, so he wasn't able, really, to grasp the reality of the marriage situation. That was my feeling.

We used to go out playing all the time. Go over to the east side, play