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I was lucky enough to meet Art Pepper as a youngster growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950’s. I guess I was about 16 at the time and just beginning to find my way around the tenor. So one night I was with a guy who was about Art’s age and he was pretty good friends with Art at the time.. His name was Dave Nagata. He was a commercial artist at the Saul Bass studios and I think he was instrumental in the title design for the film “The Man with the Golden Arm”. Dave was a friend of my parents but he took me under his wing so to speak. At that time we were living on Larissa Dr. and Dave lived on Descanso so I was at his house a lot and he had a great record collection that he let me listen to. Well one night he asked me if I’d like to meet Art Pepper. Well you can imagine the reaction of a 16 years old that was into jazz. So Dave took me with him to see Art. At that time Art was living pretty close by on Fargo. It started out all wrong because I hated driving on Fargo. it scared the hell out of me when I tried to drive up it myself and now I was in the car with a maniac driver going up this hill with the engine straining and me thinking the engine would die and so would we.. But every thing turned out fine and we got to Art’s house but Dave made me wait in the car when he went inside. I was in the car for what seemed like ages then they both came out side. Well it was like seeing Superman. I got real nervous and it was Mr. Pepper this and that till he told me it would be a lot easier if I just called him Art. We sat there for a while smoking cigarettes and he asked me what horn I played and who I was listening too. An pretty soon it became real easy to talk or to listen . I’d ask a question and he’d give me a really detailed but understandable answer. I think Art’s love of the music and his craft would have made him a really great teacher but at that time he was too busy playing. Anyway it was a really beautiful night, the talk, the atmosphere and I remember the smell of jasmine especially because I was from the East and I never encountered that smell until we moved to California. The best advice he gave me wasn’t about soloing it was about reading. He told me to practice reading until I could sight read fly shit off of a wall. And the next time I saw him he repeated that to me. I guess he knew that it was easier to blow out all your fuses than to sit there and study sight reading.
We smoked a couple of joints that Dave had brought along but there was no talk about heavy stuff. As a kid I never remember any of the musicians who were horse rustlers talking about that to me or my friends. A lot of people said that it was hard to talk to Art Pepper but I never found it so. The same was true of Miles Davis. In those days a 16 year old kid didn’t know how to talk too much and become a pain in the ass. The other thing was that back then musicians were accessible. They walked around. They lived what they played and played what they lived and that’s why I think, they played with much more passion and urgency than my generation. That was an important night in my life and even now, some 50 years later, it is still as fresh in my mind as if it had happened yesterday. Now that I think about it, it was a good thing we smoked a little because between the grass and the conversation I don’t even remember going down Fargo to get home.

This was originally part of a letter I wrote to Laurie Pepper when I found her on the Net. I revised it and sent it to a few good friends and Ted suggested that i put it here. Laurie and I grew up around the same time in LA and she has a great web site dedicated to Art’s work and her own. The book “Straight Life” is as much Laurie as it is Art. Art Pepper fans, you wont be disapointed. And you’ll find that Laurie is quite a person on her own. Check it out.

http://straightlife.info/

I understand that Laurie Pepper will be releasing an archival recording of Art’s music in May. This will be a good opportunity to look back at the career of this remarkable altoist – which I hope to do in a jazz.com blog posting.

Already released are two different concerts; One called “Vol I the Abashiri Concert” and another “Vol TT The Last Concert”.

She released them through “CD Baby”

http://cdbaby.com/cd/artpepper