Straight Life: The Story Of Art Pepper by Art Pepper, Laurie Pepper
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Book Reviews of Straight Life: The Story Of Art Pepper
Book Review: GRIPPING
Summary: 5 Stars
Just an incredible book/life/story of a jazz genius who was hooked on heroin (and then later toward the end of his life on cocaine, etc.) Pepper pulls no punches in the telling. It's all here. While you appreciate the guy's honesty (and love him for it) you can't help but shake your head and feel so damn sad and awful at the hell he put himself through with all the drugs he shot up/used/consumed... Why? Why did he have to go that route? I'm not judging here; we all have our weaknesses, but you can't help but feel shocked at the toll all the smack he shot up took on this guy (you have never met, but feel that you know and give a damn about the same way you would any friend.) I also recommend the video. There is a scene there in the third act, where Art is playing a tune called Our Song on his record player (with his wife Laurie sitting also nearby listening to this beautiful piece of music that he had written for her, for the love that he felt for his lady) and Art is saying: "That's it; that's the best that I can do. It took 51 years to be able to do that..." And I have to tell you it hit me pretty hard as I sat in front of my set watching/listening to this music that Art had created... Art Pepper, an original. I wish he were around. Yeah, I know, there's the music he left behind...it isn't enough. I miss the guy, even though I never met him. I have a feeling you'll feel the same way after reading Straight Life.Book Review: Intense and gripping as one of his late period sax solos
Summary: 5 Stars
There's no insight into Art's music here on a technical level, but it's very revealing on an emotional level. Once he started using heroin, his life became a self-destructive cycle of endless quests for the next fix. This is more of a junkie-prison memoir than a story of jazz music, although heroin was tragically a common thread in the lives of many jazz musicians of his era. Unfortunately for Art, he spent more time in jail than most of his peers did for those illegal pleasures. His experience appears to belie the gateway theory on marijuana, since he was only a casual user of pot before he started on heroin, and it was no more significant to him than alcohol. He relates little interest in marijuana or alcohol once he started on heroin, though he popped plenty of pills and even sniffed glue in his efforts to calm the monkey on his back and relieve his need for smack. If anything, tobacco might have been the real gateway drug for Art, since his inability to kick that habit was the thing that eventually forced him to leave the Syanon rehab center.
I strongly recommend this book to any fan of Art's who'd like to have some idea of what might have been going on in his head during his different recording periods, or anyone else who might appreciate a brutal, unflinching account of an addict's life.
Book Review: Of Interest To Art Pepper Fans and Non-Fans Alike
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the most compelling autobiographies I have ever read. Yes, if you are a fan of West Coast jazz and, of course, Art Pepper in particular you will enjoy it on a level others will not. However, as a memoir of a man this would almost certainly fascinate anyone with its brutally frank, unabashed self-description of the author. Pepper tells it as he sees it, holding nothing back. He is as objective about himself as anyone could be; at times self-deprecating, at times arrogant but always honest. The book by its very nature is a subjective portrait but it is unintentional. It is clear that Pepper wants to be as honest as he can about everything that crosses his mind regardless of what anyone else may think. This book is filled with fascinating anecdotes, rants, and history. Anyone interested in jazz, sociology, drug use, prison life, psychology, race relations, child abuse, California history, et cetera should read this. It is a truly great book and will be considered one of the classic autobiographies of the 20th Century in the future.Book Review: Laurie Pepper is denying this work a wider audience
Summary: 5 Stars
This is, as other reviewers point out, one of the great jazz books and surely the greatest jazz biography of all time. It's really four books in one: an account of being on the road during the big band era, a harrowing study of addiction, a horrifying prison diary, and a funny and self-deprecating account of life in a cultish, southern California rehab centre. Any one of these narratives would have been interesting. Finding all four in one book is too much. That said, where is the movie version, which would finally bring Art Pepper's music to the wider audience it has long deserved? Was there ever a part more perfect for Robert Downey Jr. (who himself lived the addict's life)? Well, it turns out Laurie Pepper had Johnny Depp interested in playing Art but couldn't agree on a script for the film. Instead, she has apparently gone off to make some low-budget, piecemeal adaptation of Straight Life herself. It's really a travesty, the final indignity of a man who led a very undignified life, but who transcended it all with his art.Book Review: Brutally honest self-portrait
Summary: 5 Stars
I have read this book twice now. The first time I read it, being a fanatical fan of Art Pepper and having seen him at his best, and worst, I was looking for reasons why Art had such a difficult life. I was impressed by his compelling and brutal self-appraisal. The book underscores Pepper's music, which is brutally self-revealing, and helps us see the connection between life and art. The second time I read it, I tried to find out whether it would help me understand the music, and it failed there. There is little of the music in this book. It does not go much into his musical life; it is mainly about Art as a man, not a musician. And remember Art did not write the book, his wife Laurie did, but of course she taped Art's comments on his life and edited them. It is revelatory, of course, but one would have wished that she had asked him more pointed questions about the music. Otherwise, as an autobiography, it ranks up there with the best in history. Hail, Art Pepper, the greatest saxophone player of our day!