Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.38 (922 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0028720105 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 528 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 0000-00-00 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
J. Levinson said Intense and gripping as one of his late period sax solos. 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 m. Kirk Alex said GRIPPING. 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. Another junky story with jazz as a sub-text I discovered jazz music by listening to Willis Conover's jazz program on the Voice of America. But at midpoint in "Straight Life" I found myself wondering about the music that I'd been listening to all these years. To be sure, Art & Laurie Pepper have collected a telling and troublesome account of jazz music from just before WW II until Art Pepper's death in 1982. But it's the jazz musician Art Pepper's own words that provides the most troublesome stuff. Booze consumed his life as much as he consumed it. Soft drugs like marijuana lead to hard drugs like smack (heroin). Pepper even wrote a tune about smack. He recorded the tu
And the author of Straight Life, the self-portrait that manages to put the pieces of this life together.". Called the greatest alto saxophonist of the post-Parker generation. Also: junkie, convict. Innovator. From rear cover notes: "Art Pepper, 1925-1982. Played with Benny Carter, Stan Kenton, Shelly Manne. Jazz musician