The Not So Straight Life of Art Pepper

Art Pepper is a renowned saxophonist and lifelong drug addict with a story worth telling. As Laurie Pepper, his third wife and coauthor, puts it, he told great stories and she documented and assembled them cohesively in this book. She painstakingly recording his account of every event in his life, having him repeat each story multiple times for clarity. Interviews with other characters in the story, as well as cross referencing Art's rap sheet and discography, helped her put it all in order.

You'll be swept off your feet by Art's accounts that weave in and out of the mainstream of the 20th century American story. He pauses his budding jazz career when he is drafted to wartime Europe. He establishes himself as one of the greatest saxophonists of his time, gets addicted to heroin, and circulates through the prison system. When he is jailed, the reader is his cellmate. How else will I learn what that experience is like?

The sex experiences are graphic, and Laurie says this is in part because they were once in talks to publish excerpts in a pornographic magazine. Though that didn't pan out, this element of the story affirms the honesty of the storyteller and makes the reader feel that she is reading the whole story.

Art never lives a straight life. At his worst, he was pawning his saxophones and steeling tools from construction sites to pay for a daily fix. He was clean for a period, though it happened to coincide with his participation in a cult (google "Synanon"). In his final years, methadone and Laurie were hugely stabilizing for him, but he and Laurie both used hard drugs on top of the methadone. Art died at age 56 in 1982, a ripe old age for a lifelong addict. He ravaged his body, suffering from cirrhosis and even brain damage in his later years. (Were his hernia's also related to substance abuse?)

I see parallels with another Art--Artie Lange. Lange is a brilliantly talented comedian and storyteller who has abused drugs and alcohol constantly throughout his career. When a regular on the Howard Stern show, he would fall asleep on air. Now 51, he has been in and out of jail and rehab and shows no signs of slowing down, even has his nose has collapsed as a result of his drug use. There is no way he outlives Pepper.