Banned after just seven posts. Is that some kind of record?

 

Apparently, that dude just came here to troll and insult people. He posted a couple things in Spanish that were down right vulgar. Good riddance!

 

I read the book, way back when it first came out, and if I recall the guy playing trumpet in that picture is Gene Krupa!

 

Nope, Conte Candoli.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conte_Candoli

 

OK, well, my memory as always has its limits and we've just confirmed one.

 

I ’m an Art Pepper fan, but I think he sells Coltrane’s final sonic/spiritual explorations seriously short, and I’m sorry he couldn’t dig Mile’s electric period that turned on so many great musicians and attracted a considerable young audience.

 

I am #1 Art Pepper fan. He totally shaped how I play and unfortunately, how I lived for a long time. I've posted this before but I now realize it was a special event for me and have to always mention how I had a chance to sit with a friend while she interviewed Art Pepper for a college newspaper after a concert at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He was surprised that she looked so young and I looked so much like a "hippie" that spoke spanish and knew a thing or two about jazz.
I couple of years later I ran into him while I was buying a bari sax at Betnun Music on Larchmont and he remembered me as "that guy that was with that good looking brown girl at Occidental". Quite the guy. Saul Betnun had many, many (horror) stories about Art Pepper. I guess this really date me......

 

… Saul Betnun had many, many (horror) stories about Art Pepper. I guess this really date me......

ooh! I’d love to hear those stories. Bought a lot of instruments from Sol Betnum back in the day (correct spelling).

 

Yeah that guy trolled a couple of threads, including one about looking for a new Tenor....

Art Pepper...great player, scumbag of a human being, honestly. He was my favorite Altoist.

I was actually sorry I read Straight Life.

Laurie Pepper, strange lady...you can argue it one way or the other, good that she keeps her husbands memory alive (from a Jazz history point of view), but whether for the right reasons or not is debatable.

 

I and everyone I ever loaned my copy of Straight Life to found it to be the most depressing book ever, since it’s more about Pepper’s various addictions and prison experiences. I happened to get him to autograph my copy shortly before his death, he signed it (as I understand he signed every copy) “Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed living it.” Perverse?

 

I think Art is spot on in his assessment of what it takes to be a good jazz musician, in my mind.

 

Does going to jail and using heroine a requirement these days? I wish I had never read Straight Life.

 

Heroin has been a part of the music industry for far too long. Neil Young's "The Needle and The Damage Done" is but one example, and has been covered by a wide range of musicians including Eddie Vedder and Greg Allman. But it's not the music industry alone.

"Heroin Chic" became an important factor during the 1980s-90s in the fashion industry and reportedly has returned in 2022.

"However, the first wave of 90s heroin chic fashion normalized heroin, despite its extreme dangers. The fear is that the return of this style could lead to a second wave, with young people seeing heroin use as cool and trendy rather than potentially fatal. This could lead to a rise in abuse, addiction, and overdose deaths, worsening the already severe opioid epidemic."

What Is “Heroin Chic” and Why Its Return is a Problem

 

Heroin has been a part of the music industry for far too long. Neil Young's "The Needle and The Damage Done" is but one example, and has been covered by a wide range of musicians including Eddie Vedder and Greg Allman. But it's not the music industry alone.

"Heroin Chic" became an important factor during the 1980s-90s in the fashion industry and reportedly has returned in 2022.

"However, the first wave of 90s heroin chic fashion normalized heroin, despite its extreme dangers. The fear is that the return of this style could lead to a second wave, with young people seeing heroin use as cool and trendy rather than potentially fatal. This could lead to a rise in abuse, addiction, and overdose deaths, worsening the already severe opioid epidemic."

What Is “Heroin Chic” and Why Its Return is a Problem

Copyright Shmopyright.

 

I was a huge Art Pepper fan at one point and still enjoy his playing, but never once for a second when reading Straight Life did I think that was a good way to live. And I've read many horror stories from and about people who had to deal with him personally. Great player on all three instruments. But junkies have seriously twisted logic.

 

Addiction is a disease. There's NO logic involved.

 

Reading that book at about age 16 guaranteed that I would stay far, far away from the junkie world. I don't suppose I was likely to get involved in H anyway, but back then I did have kind of a "just say yes" attitude about a lot of things. H was absolutely not one of them.

The story that got me was when Art is strung out and desperate for money to get a fix; and he steals a big 5 ton floor jack from a garage to pawn. So here he is, a little scrawny junkie, dragging this heavy jack down the street its steel wheels on the sidewalk making all kinds of noise, and if the mechanics realize the thing's gone, they're going to charge down the street, and couple big healthy burly mechanics are going to beat the crap out of him, and he's so strung out and ill there's no way he's going to avoid one heck of a thrashing - and he knows all of this - and he just keeps dragging that thing down the road anyway. Somehow that one incident spoke more of the desperate straits heroin addiction can create than all the prison stories.

 

I read it in college. I remember him inventing a fantasy baseball league and playing out the games using dice when he was kid. Pretty brilliant mind, but a hopeless addict.

He also said after trying acid in the 60’s, that he wouldn’t have became a junkie if it were available when he was younger… but who knows if that would have been true.

 

Friends, let's keep in mind that "Straight Life" is Art's telling of his own story and that Art was known to . . . well . . . embellish his depths and his highs. For example, we know from the discography in the back of the same damn book that Art was playing and recording in the weeks leading up to him going into the studio for "Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section," despite the fact that the book (and jazz lore) says that Art spent the months prior to that recording date strung out and not practicing and not in playing shape. But, it's a much sexier story if he was just such a genius that he could just wake-up one day after not playing for months and record the genius album that is "APMtRS."

Love Art's playing. Big influence. Love "Straight Life" and read it every few years - a great cautionary tale about the horrors of heroin addiction (as if there needs to be another one). Art was a junkie, a thief, chauvinist, possible rapist, and a supremely gifted musician.

As for his opinions on Trane and Miles - he's entitled to them the same way any of us are (see the CLB thread). Some here would say that Art is more qualified to bash Trane and Miles than anyone here. That's also an opinion that is fine.

Ironically, there are some videos of Art on YouTube (edit: here's one) where his playing is very clearly influenced by Trane. I don't especially care for his playing in this video compared to his '50s stuff. This is from 1964, fresh outta jail.

 

Opiates are horrible unless your Dr. or the Sacklers give you a sack.

 

I read that book some time ago, around when it first came out, and I still have it on my bookshelf. At the time I read it I enjoyed it, partly because I loved Art's playing and was interested in his life story. He doesn't come off all that well as a human being in the book, but he is brutally honest, even about his own shortcomings, and he did have a (dark) sense of humor. I think the book is well worth a read, but it's not for the 'faint of heart'. And it definitely can function as a warning of the dangers of heroin addiction.

I grew up in the '60s and experienced much of the (psychedelic) 'drug culture' of that era, but somehow, I always knew when to back off and not go overboard, so to speak. But no way, no how was I ever tempted to try heroin. I did once, and only once, eat a chunk of opium that a guy gave me to pay off a poker debt he owed me. I was told I'd get high, but probably also sick to my stomach. I did indeed get high and had no stomach problem (had a cast iron stomach in those days). And in fact, the high was so good that I knew never, ever to touch it again or even think about doing heroin because I was certain to get hooked. I also had a friend who died from a heroin overdose. Don't touch the stuff!

 

That's why 'the first taste is free"

 

The worst part of the opiate crises began when Dr.s were told (By the pharmaceutical companies) that pain was being under-treated AND that oxycontin wasn't addictive. The perfect storm. Of course, oxycodone had been around for years and anyone with half of a brain knew its dangers. I was on that merry- go- round from a bad neck injury. Tolerance goes up and THEN the doctors decide to cut you off....What did many 'addicts' do then? Well, cheap, easy to procure, heroin.....All was fine and dandy until fentanyl. Fentanyl has almost completely taken over all of the heroin trade. Such a fine line between the best fentanyl high and death. There was nothing I desired more in life than fentanyl....NOTHING...The horror stories I heard in rehab....chilling. The worst, by far, and the most numerous were the alcoholics though. I can go and buy 1000 gallons of whiskey right now if I so desire. Alcohol doesn't do it for me thank jeebus. I still dream of copping. Wake up mad I don't have the stuff. By the way, I was a fully functioning addict. held AND excelled at a job for 35 years....raised a family....