Straight Life - Art Pepper [59]
(Christy) I've often said that if Stan wanted to run for president, it would be a landslide because he had that powerful personality, that ability to win people over. No one's perfect, but he was great to his people, and we were his children, and we were all protected. I think you'll find very few people who'll say anything negative about him. I can't really think of anything.
(Coop) We always thought we should make more money.
(Christy) That's true.
(Coop) That's about the only thing.
I joined the band in 1945. The band Art joined-that was probably my favorite of Stan's bands. Art was there and Bud Shank, and I was getting to play more solos than before because the band was getting into a younger trend of music that we enjoyed. Shorty Rogers started writing some arrangements, Gene Roland, the more swinging things. I think all the jazz soloists in the band enjoyed it much more than Stan did. He still liked the flashy type of arrangement. And I never felt that Stan really knew when the band was swinging its best. We would wait for the moment when he got off the stand to go check the box office or something, and then we'd call all the music that we liked to play.
(Christy) The audience reaction to that band was usually great, but it depended upon where we played. If we played for an audience who expected to listen to the band and not dance, they were avid fans, and they wouldn't budge a muscle. They'd just listen with their eyes wide open and their ears wide open, but, as we often did, sometimes we'd be booked into a dance palace, and people looked at us as if we were freaks because there was nothing to dance to and the band was always loud. So, if you weren't a Kenton fan, the band wasn't that popular. For the most part we played for Kenton fans.
Traveling was no joy, but we were so young, and I, for one, was so thrilled at being with the band because that had been my ambition ever since I can remember. I started singing when I was about thirteen in my hometown, and I had to be a girl singer with a band. I would have settled for any band, but Stan, who was at his very hottest at that moment! I was in seventh heaven.
I had promised my mother I would finish high school before going to the big town, Chicago. And I did. I was all packed the night before graduation. Packed! I had two dresses and one pair of shoes.
It was a fluke thing that I got the job with Stan in the first place. I'd heard that Anita [O'Day] had left the band and I figured that this would sure be an opportunity. I'd heard that the band was coming to Chicago. I thought at the time (I was totally wrong) the first place they'll go is the office that books them. Stan hates those offices as much as I do. But in this case I guess he needed a singer, and he needed one fast. The first hit record the band really had was Anita's, "Her Tears Flowed Like Wine." I don't think Stan ever cared for singers really, but at that time he felt he needed one. I was sitting in the reception room. I would have sat there all day long on the assumption he would be there, and he finally came in. I gave him my little test record. He played it and said, "I'll let you know in a couple of days." I never suffered so much as I did during those two days waiting to hear from him. He finally called and said, "Well, we'll try you out for a few weeks and see what happens." Years later-we used to do all those disc jockey shows because they were important in those days-we were coming back from one of those things and I said, "Stan, you never did tell me, am I permanent?" I'd been with the band for about eight years! "Tampico" was my first record and it was, I think, one of the biggest hits the band ever had. I got paid scale for it. I'd been with the band for only a few months when we recorded it. I hated that song.
We used to joke about "The Bus Band in the Sky" because we never seemed to get off the bus. There were a lot of times we didn't have the time to check into a hotel and