Straight Life - Art Pepper [52]
I met Art when I was nineteen, around 1946. I was a drummer. I met him through Al Leon, the piano player; he brought him over to my house. We went out to this place in Bell; they had sessions over there. Zoot was there most of the time and Jim Giuffre, Stan Getz. The sessions were usually on Sundays. And we used to hang out, ride around, smoke dope, drink, talk.
Art and I were able to talk to one another. When two people like one another, sometimes they don't even know why. I guess there was some kind of empathy there as far as emotions, attitudes, feelings, sensitivity. And, of course, another factor was youth. When you're young, you can be very open. You make friends more easily.
Art's attitude toward music is difficult to describe accurately. He's a marvelous musician, always has been. Very exact, with the right sound, whatever that means. The sound I like. Marvelous vibrato. But very exact. Does it right. And of course a lot of guys can do it right, but they can't swing. And there's depth in his music. Insight. When I think of Art, I think of Lester Young, and I think of Mozart, too. The quality-it appears to be easy, but it's never easy. If it were easy anyone could do it. I think there's a strong classical feeling there. I'm using the word to mean a feeling for form and for proportion and whatnot. He's just naturally a musician. He came out of the womb a musician, and I'm positive he always had a commitment to it. But you wouldn't find him, like some guys, practicing eight hours a day, constantly trying to get connections, get ahead, get the gig, achieve power, fame. He was afraid of any responsibility. He just wanted to fuck around.
Patti was a friendly person, an emotional, warm person, but she wanted Art to be more active and to seek success more vigorously, go after it, take care of business. And I imagine, as his wife, she wanted security, whether it was expressed immediately in more money or whether it was expressed in his attitude and in his ability to take care of himself, so she could at least feel that she was with a secure person who had a sense of direction, control of his life. Patti was very attractive. Physically, she was an exciting-looking woman, erotic in appearance, although she had something of the, you know, clean-cut, midwestern look about her and considerable charm. I think Art felt a need for her, an emotional need to draw upon her. I would think he had a strong feeling of physical attraction, emotions of abandon with her.
Art was very sensitive and I would say cunning in many ways. A real paradox. He had an inability at times to really take care of things and deal with his life in a forceful, direct way, to change things, but at the same time he showed a cunning in his relationship with people. The cunning was a result of great natural intelligence, but it was really a form of childishness. Instead of taking the form of advancing his career and getting work, which he had every right to have, it was diverted into the manipulation of flunkies: "Take me to the job." "Bring me home." "Yeah, come on over. Bring a jug." And people did this, of course-out of admiration for his talent. And I know what they got out of it. Feeling like nothing themselves, not having any identity, they were able to incorporate themselves into something else that was larger, that was great. So they more or less had themselves swallowed. And Art-I don't think that anyone could benefit from that. It's almost a hundred