Straight Life - Art Pepper [63]
There are a lot of leaders if they get too close to the band they lose the respect of the musicians. Leaders will travel in a different car, stay in another hotel, and just see the band when they get on the bandstand. Stan usually had to go ahead and do interviews or set up; he had his own car on the road but he was with us most of the time. And you never felt aloofness from him. You could say anything you wanted to Stan. And it showed in the music. I think one of the main reasons Stan's band was such a great success, as was Duke Ellington's band-which was, of course, the greatest jazz band of all-was that, like Duke, Stan wrote for the individuals in the band instead of writing charts just with an anonymous band in mind and having the musicians play it. He knew our creative abilities; he knew what we could add to the band; and he knew we didn't want to just take it off the paper and play it. We gave something of ourselves to the music. In Art's case, Stan used Art, his individual talent, when he'd write charts with him in mind. The band had a very individually creative sound.
It's always hard doing one-nighters. You look back now, there are some good memories. For some it's good memories. Everybody has a different kind of constitution, a different ability to take a beating on the road. You travel three hundred miles a night every night on a bus, and in those days you'd have to make a 9:30 in the morning show, something like that, so it was difficult at best. You'd get into town and the rooms wouldn't be made up, so you spent four hours sleeping in the lobby waiting for checkout. It's hard, but I think there's a frame of mind that makes that all part of growing up and maturing and part of enjoying life.
Those are the experiences that later on, difficult as they were, you look back on with a lot of joy because, you know, you try new restaurants, see new places, meet new people, play for new people all the time, which is, in itself, an inspiration. But some guys, now-I'm not sure, I'm just taking a wild guess here-some guys weren't made up physically for that kind of life and I think Art maybe was one of those guys. I think Art had great difficulty coping with all the temptations of the road.
PROFILING THE PLAYERS
ART PEPPER, alto sax: He's 25, says his ambition is to be the best jazzman in America. Art joined Kenton prior to going into service in 1942. Has played with Vido Musso, Benny Carter, etc., and considers Al Cohn his favorite musician. Dislikes the road and the fact that "real great musicians can't make it unless they smile prettily and talk with gusto." down beat, April 20, 1951. Copyright 1951 by down beat. Reprinted by special permission.
THERE's a thing about empathy between musicians. The great bands were the ones in which the majority of the people were good people, morally good people; I call them real people-in jail they call them regulars. Bands that are made up of more good people than bad, those are the great bands. Those are the bands like Basie's was at one time and Kenton's and Woody Herman's and Duke Ellington's were at a couple of different times.
There's so many facets to playing music. In the beginning you learn the fundamentals of whatever instrument you might play: you learn the scales and how to get a tone. But once you become proficient mechanically, so you can be a jazz musician, then a lot of other things enter into it. Then it becomes a way of life, and how you relate musically is really involved.
The selfish or shallow person might be a great musician technically, but he'll be so involved with himself that his playing will lack warmth, intensity, beauty and won't be deeply felt by the listener. He'll arbitrarily play the first solo every time. If he's backing a singer he'll play anything he wants or he'll be practicing scales. A person that lets the