Art and Laurie Pepper Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper, Da Capo Press: Introduction by Gary Giddens; Discography by Todd Selbert; Afterward by Laurie Pepper (1979), 1994.
Gary Giddens, Introduction:
". . .
"Art Pepper was born in 1925, in California, to a merchant seaman and his fifteen-year old wife. He was so sickly his family didn't expect him to survive; when his parents divorced, he was placed in the care of his paternal grandmother . . ." p. vi
" . . .
"Pepper had . . . achieved a measure of stardom . . . Benny Carter's band, and for five years (1946-1951), following his stint in the Army, he emerged as the most admired soloist in the Stan Kenton orchestra. . . ." p. vii
" . . .
"Then, in 1956, he started making the rounds as a sideman. He appeared on numerous sessions led by Shorty Rogers, Chet Baker, Marty Paich, Hoagy Carmichael, John Grass, Mel Torme, Barney Kessel, June Christy, Henry Mancini, Andre Previn, Helen Humes, and others. During the same years, 1956 to 1960, he hooked up with Les Koenig's Contemporary Records, and produced a series of masterful albums.
"It's astonishing to read in Straight Life that Art had to be propped up to play on sessions that became epiphanies of the West Coast jazz movement. Pepper's intonation was clear and balmy (on clarinet and tenor as well as alto), but the texts of his solos were shaded wtih longings. the tensile and deliberated phrasing was a means to a direct and manly emotional expressiveness that was virtually antithetical to the cool posturings of those improving beach boys who tried to recreate California jazz as fun in the midnight sun. . . ." p. viii
" . . .
"Finally, at the nadir of his life, he retreated to Synanon. The Sixties were in full gear, and he wore an earring and hit the rock joints with his tenor; but his life was empty and even his mother refused him lodging. The description of life at Synanon is as uncompromising as the jail sequences; he is alternately damning and grateful. The best thing to happen to him there was meeting Laurie, who became his wife, lover, mother, babysitter, manager, editor, and co-author.
"Art left Synanon in 1971. Four months later, his father died . . . He started working as a musician again, playing casuals and clinics, touring colleges, sitting in. . . . In 1977 . . . in March, he played a concert series in Tokyo with Cal Tjader . . . in June, he toured the East Coast as a leader, playing two dates at the Village Vanguard . . . in September he was busted after an automobile accident . . . Les Koenig died in November. He went back to Japan in February 1978, Galaxy signed him in September and Straight Life [was published] . . . in 1979." p. x
[p. ? Photos of Synanon activity board and jamming at Synanon.]
AP: "Two guys came in one time and they said, "There's these two rats that are going to come here soon. They turned over on us got us busted, and if we leave before they get here, really take care of them." Everybody said okay, and these guys were shipped out to max at the farm, Biscaluse Center . . ." p. 143
Chapter 21 Synanon: 1969
AP: "There wasn't anything left in the house but a few clothes. We threw them in the back of the car and drove to Synanon, which was way out in Santa Monica on the beach . . . Christine . . . went in. Finally, here she comes with three guys from Synanon. One of them looked at me and just shook his head. They helped me up the stairs into the place and told me to sit on this bench. It was a big, old building. It looked like an old-time hotel. I sat down, and everybody was staring at me, and it was altogether diffferent from what I thought it would be. Instead of being dopefiends and people like me, the people there were all young or old square people. I wanted to get out of there. I started to stand up, and they said, "Where are you going?" I said I wanted to get my things. They said, "You stay there. We'll get them." I said, "Oh, no, I want to get them myself." I started to walk out the door, and they just grabbed me and dragged me back to the bench.
"You have to have an interview before you can be taken in, to see whether you really want to get in , if you're really hung up, to see if you've got any money. They helped me up the stairs - the place was full of stairs - and we finally got to this room, and I nearly fainted I was so beat. Greg Dykes was in the room. I was so juiced I was seeing double, triple . . . Somebody said, "Well, we have some rules here, you know. No physical violence. We don't allow any stealing." . . . . I raved and raved. Christine was trying to cool me down, and Greg was trying to calm me because he wanted to get me in. He's acting like my atttorney or something." p. 386
". . .
". . . It was only a little way from Synanon to the VA Hospital . . ." p. 387
". . . Merle didn't know where the place was. We stopped at a gas station and somebody told him, "Just go down Pico till you get to the ocean. Just go all the way as far as you can go." Finally I saw the big sign that said Synanon but one of the letters was gone-SYN NON - and I remembered thinking of sin. It was a foreboding, old building made of brick. It looked like a gigantic YMCA or one of the old billets the army used to take over . . .
". . . He opend the doors - big, glass, swinging doors-helped me inside up the little flight of stairs. There were people standing around and all kinds of activity going on. I heard people going upstairs and I think I heard music." p. 394
". . . You could see an area going into an enormous room, where there were lots of people walking back and forth. I noticed a blackboard with times and meetings posted on it. Somebody asked me if I'd like a cup of coffee. I said no . . . I had the same feeling I had before. I just wanted to get out of there. I thought that once they got their hooks into me there was not telling what they might do. I was frightened. They didn't look like dopefiends to me. They weren't like me. They all talked like New Yorkers . . ." p. 395
". . .
"We walked into a gigantic room. I expected to see a globe with flashing lights like the old ballrooms had that I used to play in. There was an area that looked like a bar in the back, and I saw tables and people eating. On the right there were eight or ten big, high windows. It was a huge place. And there were couches and chairs and people sitting around, young people, old people. I asked Greg, "Who are all these people?" He said, "These are just the people that are here. These are Synanon people." They had great big couches, a whole bunch of them in lines. I saw somebody else lying on a couch. He looked terrible. Greg said, "That's somebody like you that's kicking. They look after him and get him things." I remember Greg saying, "This is the only time you're really treated good, so anything you want, ask for it. Anytime they offer you something and you want it, say yes." Somebody put sheets over an old couch and a blanket. They got a wastebasket and put a plastic liner in it in case I vomited. I sat down. There was a guy that was going to sit with me; he introduced himself. Greg said, "I gotta go. I'll see you in the morning. Relax and get some sleep. don't be scared. Everything's fine. We're all friends here."
"I stayed on the couch a couple of days, I guess, and there were just too many people bothering me, coming around. That's what they do there. In Synanon people won't leave you alone. They wake up in the morning and spend the whole day putting their noses in other people's business: "What's wrong?" "How do you feel?" That's Synanon - bothering and bugging everyone. That's supposed to make you well and make you all one big, happy family. I'd be lying on the couch feeling horrible when all of a sudden some stupid-looking broad or a couple of them would come over and say, "Hello! I'm Margie, and this is Wilma, and what's your name, and how are you, and we're fine. We're from so-and-so. Where are you from?" Oh God! I told the guy who was sitting with me, "I can't stand this. I've gotta get someplace where these people won't be bugging me."p. 396
"I found out I had a "tribe leader." Everybody was in tribes, like the Indians use to be, and I had a leader. I said, "Well, where's my leader at? Let me find him." He's a real important personage. They don't know if he can be bothered now or not. Finally he came. He was a black guy, and, it turned out, he was a guy like me, a guy that had been around , an older guy and a nice guy, and he like jazz, and thank God for that. His name was Bob Holmes . . .
"Bob talked to some people and came back and said, "You're still not well enough to go to one of our dorms because then you'd be required to carry on like everybody else does - with a job and the games. It would be too hard. But since you are in such bad shape I'm gong to get you into the infirmary." The infirmary was in a building in a place they called the Clump, an apartment complex. I took a ride on the Synanon bus and checked in . . .
"So I'm in this little infirmary in Synanon, and I hear these voices talking Puerto Rican just like lightning . . . Synanon was filled with Puerto Ricans, blacks and people from New York - who of all the white people have the least regard or respect for anyone. There were maybe one or two Mexicans in the whole place. There were maybe five or six people that I called real dope fiends that were from the coast. Righteous people. Regulars." p. 397
"They moved me to a bedroom where my new roommate was a young guy, the son of a doctor. . . Peter Kuhn . . . about 16 . . . [said]
"Synanon had gone to Puerto Rico and recruited dope fiends. They go so much money from the government and a tax-free stamp for recruiting people. The went to Puerto Rico and New York and got these guys, who were now so far from home they couldn't leave. Synanon couldn't get people from California to come and stay. I found out that the young kids were put in Synanon by their parents or by the courts. some had dabbled in pot and some had actually messed around a bit with dope. And then people brought little children in with them - little, teeny children and babies. Sometimes women gave birth to children there. And sometimes people left and left their children behind for Synanon to take care of. So there were the babies, there were the young people, the Puerto Ricans, the New Yorkers, the blacks, a lot of blacks, and then, of all things, there the squares. "Life-stylers." Game players who had moved into Synanon." p. 398
"There were squares that came down and played the 'Synanon game,' which is like group therapy. It was a club for them. They met and played a game one night a week. When I first got into Synanon they had their own games, just squares, and then the residents, the dopefiends, one or two of them would play in each game with the squares, which seemed like an interesting thing to have happen. There were all kinds of people in the "game club" - businessmen, real players, those phoney guys that say they're writers. Everybody had some kind of line, but in the games they'd be ripped apart. In the games you study people and try to find their weaknesses. You point out the bad things. The squares were people that were lonely, searching for companionship. Some of the women were just beautiful, some of them had a lot of money, and I used to wonder why they came to a place like this. At first I thought they came to hang out with dopefiends, to have some excitement in their lives, but after I was aroud them and observed them, I saw that even though that was part of it, the main thing was it was a place to go. They'd play their game, and after the game they'd congregate in one area of the club where there was a bar with big windows overlooking the ocean. It had tables and was like a real bar except there was no liquor served. They served coffee, ice cream, things like that. the squares sat there and talked. You could talk to any girl you wanted. Any girl could talk to any guy. If they didn't talk they'd be ranked later on in the games. It was an open sesame to meet people. They went out together. they were in games together and could find out about each other.
"So the people in the game club were lonely people, and I found out that even the ones that had money and were good-looking and had way-out cars were just as hung up as everybody else. They didn't know how to communicate, they felt inferior, they were self-conscious, they didn't feel adequate. Synanon was great; it enabled them to release their hostilities in the games. They could make fun of people and say things they could never say outside. After awhile they felt free . . .
"There were squares who after a certain length of time decided they liked the Synanon way of community living, so they moved in. They moved into apartments across the street from the club and worked outside at different jobs and gave most of their money to Synanon. They spent all their free time in Synanon playing games and hanging out, and they could live there with their friends, away from the violence of the outside world, because there was never any violence in Synanon . . . The main rules were no dope or alcohol and no physical violence, so Synanon was very safe in a world that's awfully frantic and crazy." p. 400
". . .
". . . Chuck Dederich, the founder, Mr. God, with his bullfrog voice . . . An old wino. Well, I guess he drank whiskey, gins and stuff, but here's a guy that had a big, old line of bullshit, some phoney salesman out of the midwest who happened to land down on the beach and in order to live had to run some kind of game up under somebody. He was a great bullshitter, so he found a little, beat pad, and he found some winos, and he got some dopefiends to come in, and he gave them some soup, and pretty soon he got some money from somebody. By the time I got there they had this huge, old luxury hotel and other places all over - Frisco, Oakland, San Diego - half a dozen places he'd built up from this scam. . . .
"I saw a guy I'd known in jail . . . "You have to wait and see. Wait until you play some games. I couldn't explain it to you in a million years. The best thing to do is keep an open mind. You've got to stay here. You know you can't leave. Try to be cool and then when you get in a game you can rage and call everybody every name under the sun and get rid of your frustrations. That'll enable you to stand it until the next game. Believe me, it'll really be interesting. It's a hell of an experience, man." . . . " p. 401
"They started taking me out by the swimming pool. The Clump was like one of those Hollywood apartment complexes. There was a little coffee sho where you could get coffee and peanut butter and bread for nothing. . . . " p. 402
" . . .a guy took me to an apartment in the Clump right near the pool. It was a large, two-bedroom apartment with two baths, and the front room was filled with bunk beds . . .
"It had a feeling like jail, only there were no cell. The Clump had a lot of units and little walkways. I learned that a couple of blocks down, on Kansas Street, they had another complex and more people lived there; that's where they had a school for the little kids. A few people lived at the club and in the apartments across the street from it, but they were squares or people who's been in Synanon for a long, long time." p. 402
" . . .
". . . Bill Dederich, Big Chuck's brother, had an apartment at the Clump. . ."
"The residents were divided into tribes of about sixty people who played the Synanon game together, and each tribe had a certain section of the Clump, maybe three apartments for the men and two for the women. . . .
"In each tribe, there were so many "elders," people who'd been arond for a number of years . . . There was a Store where you got your clothes for free, but the good things were in another store for the big shots; we got the old things they didn't want . . ." p. 404
". . . they assigned me to the bookkeeping department, which was in a building a little ways down from the Clump, a gigantic, old warehouse where they kept all the stuff they hustled for Synanon, all the donations, furniture, food. They had offices upstairs . . ." p. 405
". . . If Chuck Dederich or Jack Hurst were to tell them to jump out of the sixth-story window of the club they'd all jump because they'd think that that's the "Synanon Thing," the "Synanon Position," to jump out the sixth -floor window. . . ." p. 406
". . .
"The thing of it is, the people that ran Synanon had to keep everyone off guard and keep everything different. If they fell into a routine, if life became boring and fell into a pattern, they'd lose the people. So they would change. All the time. Just make changes for changes' sake . . . Every single room in Synanon, whether it was in the club, the Clump, Kansas Street, the school, each room had been maybe fifty different things in the last three years. You'd be here, so they'd move everybody over there. They move these people here, move you there, move this here, paint that. Make a rule: you can't have this. Then you can have it . . ." p. 407
". . . They did all this to keep everybody messed up. That was the basis of Synanon because dopefiends and nuts can't stand routine and when they get bored they have to do something crazy, so Synanon made the insanity. Themselves. The people that ran it caused the insanity.
"Shortly after I arrived, the insanity took the form of changing the hours. Ordinarily people get up in the morning and set certain hours aside for this or that. Synanon decided to do away with this . . . They decided on the twenty-four hour day . . .
"I'd go to work at 11 p.m. and at 3 a.m. a jitney would come pick us up and drive us to the club to eat. We'd ride down the street; we wouldn't see a soul, no life, no cars; it was like death outside; and we didn't say a word to each other. We'd go to this ridiculous, old-time club that used to be a millionaire's hangout, now fallen into disrepair, a junk heap full of ignorant ex-dopefiends or whatever you want to call them, nuts, running around trying to be painters, carpenters and carpet layers . . .
"We'd get out of our jitney at 3:20 and walk into this club that looked like some old movie set for Rudolf Valentino or Theda Bara. And here were these tired-eyed musicians. They were playing music, and the crazy people were standing around; chicks with no bras were dancing. We'd walked into this mad revelry without drinks, without dope, and go into the kitchen and eat. We'd eat the same thing we had at supper: if we had breakfast at supper we'd have breakfast for breakfast; it we had meatballs and spaghetti for supper we'd have meatballs and spaghetti with dripping water running off the plate for breakfast. When we finished eating, the musicians would play a "hoopla," which was the standard dance of Synanon. Some nut invented this togetherness rock-and-roll dance: instead of dancing separately they all danced together, following the same steps." p. 409
". . .
Chapter 22: Synanon: Laurie, 1969
". . . Synanon had a private beach, and there weren't many people out at the time . . ." p. 415
". . . Laurie Miller . . ." p. 417
". . . she had been a photographer doing album covers and publicity pictures . . . rock groups . . . about twenty-five . . ." p. 421
". . . She said, "Art Pepper. I knew some people that knew you at Westlake School of Music." She named a bunch of people, Les McCann, Charlie Haden. I said, "I used to blow with Les McCann and Charlie Haden - I gave him his first jazz job with my quartet . . .
". . .
"The Synanon beach is right behind the club, and it has a fence around it with two little openings down by the water . . ." p. 419
". . . Paul Rainbolt . . ." p. 420
". . . a dopefiend and a criminal . . . he'd been in Synanon for about four years . . ." p. 424
". . . There were really only three places we could walk to. We could walk toward Venice, past the Pacific Ocean Park pier, which had been closed down and then had caught fire several times. It was a strange fairyland that was all black and destroyed. There were twisted tracks where the rollercoaster had been, a stand and old tin cans, and a diving bell where people used to go down and look at sea monsters. There were fences all around, but you could walk along the water and look up and see parts of it. Beyond that there was a walkway that went along the sand past the city of Venice. There were old storefronts on it; a fruit stand; centers for elderly Jewish people where they could go dance; and then there were the beat shops, where the kids, the hippies, sold jewelry and candles. Beside them there were the winos and the dope culture, which encompassed a lot of people, young and old. You had all these people wandering around, sitting on benches, and there was always some excitement. Every now and then you'd run into a group playing bongos and conga drums or somebody playing a flute, and a couple of these freaky, half-naked girls would dance. We could go to Venice, or we could walk into Santa Monica, to the shopping mall, or else we could walk north up the walkway and go to the Santa Monica pier." p. 422
"We walked toward the Santa Monica pier. It was a beautiful day. Laurie was wearing a short, green dress, suede, like velvet, and she looked very cute. We walked to the pier and down to the end. On the way back we stopped at the merry-go-round. They have an old, old one there, still working. This old-time organ music was playing . . . " p. 423
". . .
". . . Betty "Greek" married to Jimmy Georgelos "old timers" . . . p. 425
". . . Synanon security. They had, like, police cars that said Synanon on the sides, with walkie-talkie radios, and they rode around in these cars trying to find someone drinking a can of beer . . ." p. 426
". . . Frankie Lago . . . p. 428
23: Synanon: Games, Raids, the Trip 1969-1971
" . . .
"The Stew was the only game that allowed spectators. There was a room set aside for it with twenty chairs for the participants and bleachers so people could watch. It ran twenty-four hours a day, every day . . . You picked up all the information about whatever was happening there, and it was the major entertainment of the place. Jack Hurst, the director and one of the sharpest, funniest game players, would drop into the Stew a lot to play . . . I began to get hooked on the game and I started studying it, but I wanted to be original and have my own style, which I gradually developed . . ." p. 433
". . .
"I started woodshedding down in the basement of the club . . . They had "hooplas" after games, sometimes two or three in an evening . . . There were some excellent professional musicians in Synanon. We had Wendell, a black tenor player, really played well; Marty Meade, "the Troll," a crazy little guy who played good piano and wrote music; Lew Malin, a very exciting drummer, and Lou Loranger, who played bass. We had a Puerto Rican, Jaime Camberlin, who played congas. Later on we got Frank Rehak on trombone; he was on some of Miles's albums . . .
". . . Then Tom Reeves, an old-timer in Synanon, began organizing the musicians and even instituted musical games." p. 434
"In Synanon your mind was completely free of the fears people outside use up their energy worrying about. You didn't have to think about food or rent or doctor bills. You didn't have to worry about what you were going to do when you got old, if you got ugly, if you lost a leg. The first tribe leader I had, Bob Holmes, had kidney trouble. He'd had an operation and the only way he could live was through a dialysis machine. Those machines are hard for people to get the use of, but because he was in Synanon and because of the money and power and influence Synanon has, Bob had access to a dialysis machine each week, as he needed it. If he'd been on the streets, living in some beat shack in Cleveland or Watts, he would have died. So all you had to do was accept these changes and periodic humiliations and you had nothing to worry about."
". . . Every now and then somebody would come in from the oustside to play. Phil Woods dropped by, one of the greatest alto saxophone players living . . ." p. 450
"Then something happened that turned everything around. There was an old guy in Synanon, Reid Kimball, a close friend of Chuck's, and he was dying of emphysema. He had to stop smoking . . . the kids in Tomales Bay, the fanatical followers, they got together with Chuck and said, "To help you stop we're going to stop smoking."
"At first it was a voluntary thing . . . they could get everything donated except cigarettes. Cigarettes was our biggest expense.
"It didn't stay voluntary long. Soon another general meeting was called and Chuck appeared in person and told us smoking cigarettes would henceforth be as forbidden as the use of drugs and physical violence. After that meeting I . . . took my cigarettes and stashed them . . ." p. 451
". . . I'd sneak away from the Clump and smoke at Santa Monica City College. In Santa Monica they have police helicopters that fly around. I got so panicked after sneaking around for a while that I was sure that the police helicopter was watching me at Santa Monica City College or whereever I was.
". . .
". . . Blackie Levinson . . . [ha]d been in Synanon two or three times while I'd been there, but I knew him from before, from jail . . ." p. 452
"Laurie and I were friends with a couple, life-stylers, who had an apartment in the Clump. They were going back east to visit their families for the holidays and told us we could stay at their place for a whole week while they were gone. Laurie sensed that I was leaving, even though I couldn't tell her. We had a wonderful week together in that apartment and when it was over I gave Blackie a call and told him to come pick me up." p 453
Chapter 24 The Return of Art Pepper, 1971-1978
". . .
"Bob and Nikki Deal had a proposition to make me. Bob recently opened a health food bakery in Venice, Good Stuff Bread. They lived next door to the bakery; they had an extra room, and they told me if I'd like, I could stay with them, and work with Bob, helping around the bakery, keeping the books . . .
"Bob made a heavy dark brown bread . . . and a carrot cake, a banana cake, and an apple cake all out of whole wheat . . . p. 456
Afterward
Laurie Pepper, nee Miller: . . .
"During the summer of 1959, when I was in my teens, I worked at an L.A, coffee house called The Ash Grove. I sold records in a shop in the club. Ed Michel was the house rhythm section. He played the bass for the folkies who didn't bring their own bands. Ed was dating one of the waitresses, and he and I became good pals. When he wasn't working we'd spend hours talking and philosophizing. He was wise and old. I think he was 21. I went off to college and Ed went to work for Pacific Jazz and then Verve in L.A. So Ed and I never saw each other again. For eighteen years. Until one Saturday in 1976 or 1977, Les Konig called to say that he would be coming by Donte's, an L.A. jazz club, to hear Art play. That was rare. He was bringing two friends, both record producers. John Snyder and Ed Michel. Ed Michel! Does he play the bass? Same guy. The evening was fine; Art played wonderfully. He played some ballads, and Les, not given much to praise let alone hyperbole, remarked that Art was probably the greatest ballad player living. John agreed. Ed said, " Oh, I don't know . . ." p. 486