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Description Straight Life: The Story Of Art Pepper by Art Pepper, Laurie Pepper (Goodreads Author) 4.31 of 5 stars 4.31 · rating details · 357 ratings · 46 reviews Art Pepper (19251982) was called the greatest alto saxophonist of the post-Charlie Parker generation. But his autobiography, Straight Life, is much more than a jazz bookit is one of the most explosive, yet one of the most lyrical, of all autobiographies. This edition is updated with an extensive afterword by Laurie Pepper covering Art Pepper’s last years, and a complete and up-to-date discography by Todd Selbert. Back in my jazzbo days, I had this one Art Pepper LP. At the time, I didn’t know much about his life, but the album cover told a story in itself. There was Pepper: a shady-looking dude, his once-handsome features coarsened by years of hard living, a bare forearm displaying crude jailhouse tats. He looked more like an old carny than a jazz musician. Yet the music itself was in stark contrast to this rough exterior: unguardedly tender and deeply beautiful, it had no earthly business coming out of that man’s horn. But that was Art Pepper: when he wasn’t being a white-trash fuckup—shooting smack, stealing auto parts, going in and out of prison—he recorded some of the loveliest jazz in history. Straight Life, Pepper’s oral autobiography, doesn’t shed much light on this dichotomy. Pepper himself seems as mystified as anyone by the source of his talent. It was always just there, apparently, and could be summoned at will. No matter how strung out he was, no matter how many months it had been since he’d picked up a saxophone, put a battered old horn in his mouth and imperishable sounds poured out of him. Part of the book’s magic is that, throughout, Pepper remains blithely unaware of his own assholery. He’ll tell these completely insane stories as if they were the most natural things in the world, fully expecting the reader’s sympathy and adoration, and the whole time your jaw’s hanging open and you’re thinking: “Holy. Fuck. I cannot believe you’re telling me this. But don’t stop now, you crazy son-of-a-bitch.” What makes it even more insane is that all of this stuff was dictated to his wife. The chicks he “balled”, the joys of heroin, the hare-brained robberies he pulled to support his habit: nothing’s off-limits, and everything’s recounted with the same naïve gusto. Buck Feb 25, 2010 Buck rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Shelves: in-captivity, life-writing, music-is-my-mistress Back in my jazzbo days, I had this one Art Pepper LP. At the time, I didn’t know much about his life, but the album cover told a story in itself. There was Pepper: a shady-looking dude, his once-handsome features coarsened by years of hard living, a bare forearm displaying crude jailhouse tats. He looked more like an old carny than a jazz musician. Yet the music itself was in stark contrast to this rough exterior: unguardedly tender and deeply beautiful, it had no earthly business coming out of that man’s horn. But that was Art Pepper: when he wasn’t being a white-trash fuckup—shooting smack, stealing auto parts, going in and out of prison—he recorded some of the loveliest jazz in history. Straight Life, Pepper’s oral autobiography, doesn’t shed much light on this dichotomy. Pepper himself seems as mystified as anyone by the source of his talent. It was always just there, apparently, and could be summoned at will. No matter how strung out he was, no matter how many months it had been since he’d picked up a saxophone, put a battered old horn in his mouth and imperishable sounds poured out of him. Part of the book’s magic is that, throughout, Pepper remains blithely unaware of his own assholery. He’ll tell these completely insane stories as if they were the most natural things in the world, fully expecting the reader’s sympathy and adoration, and the whole time your jaw’s hanging open and you’re thinking: “Holy. Fuck. I cannot believe you’re telling me this. But don’t stop now, you crazy son-of-a-bitch.” What makes it even more insane is that all of this stuff was dictated to his wife. The chicks he “balled”, the joys of heroin, the hare-brained robberies he pulled to support his habit: nothing’s off-limits, and everything’s recounted with the same naïve gusto. Laurie Pepper, the wife in question, made a crucial (and brave) editorial decision: she sought out dozens of her husband’s colleagues and cronies, put them on tape, then interspersed Art’s narrative with these other depositions, thus setting up a counterpoint to Pepper’s self-mythologizing. So in one section you have Pepper reminiscing about his years in San Quentin, bragging about what a bad-ass he was and how he’d decided he needed to kill someone to cement his rep. And he totally would have done it, too—had the shiv made and everything! Then he got early parole. Bummer. A page or two later, one of the guys he was in the joint with—a real bad-ass— is laughing good-naturedly about what a “pathological physical coward” Art was. The book would’ve been amazing in any case, I think, but it’s these choral interludes that make it the stone-cold masterpiece it is. In fairness to Pepper, it must be said that almost everybody liked him, even those who knew better than to trust him. They couldn’t help it. Like a lot of weak people, he had an insatiable need for love and a cunning ability to extort it. The thing that fascinates and horrifies me about the man is that, while he experienced enough pleasure and pain for ten lifetimes, he never really learned anything, never repented, never changed. He wasn’t a malicious person, by any means, just incredibly selfish—one of those charming rogues who blunder their way through life, leaving broken hearts and ruination in their wake. If his talent exempted him from normal accountability to some degree, his physical beauty did the rest (everyone remarks on how hot he was, including Art himself). Men wanted to be his buddy and give him free drugs, and women wanted to take care of him. What chance did he have? Poor bastard. I don’t envy him one bit. But it must have been a freaky trip while it lasted. Related Torrents
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