Straight Life (70 page)

Ed agreed to a live date but warned that the maximum studio time we could afford with the strings was two days. So Art would have to do it quickly and right because, live, there'd be too much leakage all over the place to do any editing. Ed wanted to use the rhythm section he'd put together for the Art Pepper Today album. Art agreed to Stanley Cowell on piano and Cecil McBee on bass, but he asked especially for Carl Burnett on drums. We had hoped to have maybe a flute, maybe an oboe, but we couldn't afford it. Ed said he thought it might be good to have Howard Roberts play guitar.

This was in August. We left Ed to go on a short tour up the coast to Seattle. At the end of the month Art had a weeklong gig at a hotel in Phoenix-with a house band. We would fly directly from Phoenix to Berkeley to do the string album. I strongly suggested to Art that we take Milcho Leviev with us to Phoenix. I reasoned that with Milcho, Art would have a chance to practice playing "Our Song," the ballad he'd just written for the album, and he could also practice "Winter Moon," which he hadn't played in years. Milcho came along, and they did play the tunes. And there was a bonus. One morning Milcho came to our room with a chart. He said he'd been taping some of the sets, and he'd taped a little blues riff Art had played last night, and he liked it so much he'd transcribed it. That was the tune that became "Melolev" on One September Afternoon, the quintet album which was made in one day, the day after the strings went home. Art was not drinking or smoking or arguing with anybody. He wasn't talking much. He wrote a few tunes.

We flew to Berkeley on September 2nd, and on September 3rd and 4th they taped the album. I don't remember which was the first tune, but I do remember Art standing in front of the mike, ready to rehearse it. The strings played an introduction, and Art was supposed to come in, but he didn't. Bill Holman turned to Art who just grinned at him and apologized. Art said that he was listening to the strings, and they sounded so beautiful, he just forgot to play.

Winter Moon got great reviews. (Art rarely got bad reviews. The critics, worldwide, either liked or loved him. Remarks on his performances and recordings ranged from "darkly lyrical" and "brilliantly crisp" to "demon jazz god" and "celestial.") Artie Shaw called to say how much he liked it. He was one of Art's heros. Art had never met him. Art said, in Don's movie, that Winter Moon was the best album he'd ever made, that "Our Song" was the most beautiful song he'd ever written, and that his solo on that tune was the best solo he'd ever recorded.

But he hadn't yet recorded the Maiden Voyage albums.

On August 13th, 14th, and 15th of 1981, Art was recorded live at an L.A. club called the Maiden Voyage with George, David, and Carl. Four albums have been released from that session, Roadgame, Art Lives, APQ, and Arthur's Blues. I think they're phenomenal.

Well, it was Art's band. George grew more graceful and perfect every day, Carl, consistent and serene, was our anchor, and then there was our bassist, David Williams, a slender, elegant Trinidadian with perfect manners who was capable of daring leaps of precarious invention at the most critical moments. Art was inspired by his musicianship and admiringly deplored his personal, social style, which was both cagey and reckless.

Art was well aware, while he was doing the date, how wonderful it was. John Overton owned the sound truck which housed the recording equipment for the date. It was parked in the club lot. He wrote me, after Art died, that he'd always treasure the memory of the night Art climbed up into the truck during a break one evening and listened to a playback of "But Beautiful." "And then," John wrote, "he was so delighted, he began to dance to it."

So much was recorded that Ed asked Art to listen to all of it and make careful notes on each selection. Art did that, twice. He knew it would take years to release so much material. He told me slyly, "Ed won't say it, but he wants these notes so he'll know what to release after I'm dead." While we'd been at Ed's house, making the ballad album selections, Ed's partner at that time, Francesca, had read Art's fortune from a Tarot deck. Art was unsurprised when he drew the death card.

The notes Art wrote for the performances he liked are full of praise for the band and for himself; they're decorated with joyful little cartoon characters kicking up their heels. Of his original "Arthur's Blues," he wrote, "My whole life went into this."

His whole life also went into "Everything Happens to Me" which should have been Art's theme song. To the best of my knowledge, he did play the tune fairly frequently during his early years. But he never really recorded it, and he could never have played it-or in my opinion anything else-the way he plays "Everything Happens To Me" here. (In my opinion, though, which is worth very little at this point because it's so subjective, nobody ever played anything quite as wonderful as this "Everything Happens To Me.")

I'll tell you Art's opinion. One afternoon he sat down and listened to it seriously. When it was over he looked up at me and shook his head. He was absolutely dazzled. He said, "I don't know... Am I crazy?"

I knew exactly what he meant. He meant that he didn't think anybody had ever before played anything quite as wonderful as this "Everything Happens To Me." But, obviously, he must be crazy because the world was not beating a path to his door or crowning him with lilies or electing him emperor-or even putting his picture on the cover of down beat.

We went back on the road after recording ended, returning to Berkeley in April of '82 to record a duo album-just Art and George. Art was eager to be recorded playing clarinet. He considered it a lovely but intractable instrument, practiced on it, just a little, nearly every day, and never believed that he could really master it (many serious critics disagreed), though he sometimes felt he came close. This would be the perfect setting for it.

The tunes were chosen by Art and George and Ed. I suggested "Goin' Home." When we'd been in Japan the previous November, I'd heard George fooling around on the piano before a soundcheck. It was the last concert of the tour. We'd been away a month, and the following morning we'd be flying back to Narita to change planes for L.A. George was playing, appropriately enough, "Goin' Home." Since Art was always hungry for clarinet-appropriate tunes, I brought it to his attention. Art brought a cassette of Ray Charles singing "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Cryin"' to the studio for George to listen to. It was a favorite of Art's, something he'd always wanted to play. He played saxophone on that one. George suggested "Isn't She Lovely," which Art never stopped calling "that weird Stevie Wonder tune," and he played it on both alto sax and clarinet. He had a hard time with it for some reason. But George had a hard time with "Billie's Bounce," an Ed suggestion and another alto tune. Most of the rest of the tunes were Art's choices.

Unfortunately, there were some technical problems. The plan had been to do that date direct-to-digital. Ed and his engineer were inexperienced with the technology. The sound they'd recorded was much too dry. It could be transferred to analogue and remixed (as was done later for an album titled Tete a Tete), but that wasn't true digital. George said we ought to try again. We all went back to Berkeley. Art and George played some of the same tunes, including "Goin' Home," and some new ones.

I've been to a lot of record dates but none to equal those for sweetness and light and dedicated hard work.

Immediately after this, we left for a short tour of the U.S. George was unavailable. He was working with Sarah Vaughan. We brought Roger Kellaway along with David and Carl. We went to Chicago, Milwaukee, and then to a big KOOL jazz festival in D.C. where Art got to see one of his oldest friends, Zoot Sims, and where he played like an angel.

We went straight home from D.C. on May 30th. On the morning of June 9th Art told me he had a headache. He never had headaches. He asked me if I thought his face looked weird. The left side of his mouth was drooping. I told him we had to go to the hospital. He refused to go. I said we'd better go see his doctor.

We were on a health plan, courtesy of the Musicians' Union. We belonged to Kaiser Permanente, an HMO. His doctor looked him over, and she said he'd better go to the hospital. Art said he didn't want to go. He told her that he was supposed to play in Carnegie Hall in two weeks with Phil Woods. He said, "People die in hospitals." She laughed. She said not everybody does. She wanted to call an ambulance, but Art refused it. I said I'd drive him. It wasn't far.

Art sat beside me as I drove and calmly told me that he loved me. He said if this was "it" he wanted me to know that he was grateful for all I'd done. I told him that this wasn't it. He said that I'd made it possible for him to do the book, the documentary, the ballad album, all the music. If this was it he was satisfied, and he wanted me to know that. He was quiet for a while. Then he said, proudly, "I'm leaving you well provided for." Finally he said, "No matter what happens, promise me there won't be any surgery. I can't take any more of that. Don't let them cut me." I promised.

We were put into a cubicle in the emergency area. Art jumped up on the examining table and told me he was starving. He asked me to buy him a candy bar. I left, found one for him, and returned to find him sniffing a line of coke. He said, jokingly, "I want to be high when I die." I took the coke away from him. Suddenly he cried out. He said he couldn't see out of his left eye and he couldn't move his left side.

I called a doctor who made him lie down and started questioning him. He confessed to the doctor, a kindly, grey haired man, that yesterday he'd acquired a needle from a friend and last night he'd shot some coke. I hadn't known. He asked the doctor if that could have caused this. The doctor told him maybe. By this time Art's headache was giving him terrible pain, and he begged for a painkiller. The doctor said not yet.

The doctor left. Art said to me, "You have no idea how scared I am." I told Art, I told myself, "They can fix it. These days they can do all kinds of things. They'll fix it. Remember my father's heart. He's an old man, but they fixed his heart." Art said, "Oh, man, I don't want to hear about your father." He despised my father. It seemed like a good sign to me that he could remember to hate my father. I said, "I was just saying they can fix it. I don't care about my father (I didn't)." I told him that I loved him more than anyone in the whole world (I did). I kissed and stroked him and called him every outlandish pet name we'd ever invented. He relaxed. He said, "That's what I need. I need love." He passed out.

He was C.A.T. scanned. There was a bleed in his brain. He had to be rushed to another Kaiser hospital to be seen and possibly operated on by a neurologist. I told the doctor that I'd promised Art there'd be no cutting. The doctor told me there was a chance that Art could be restored to normal health. I let an ambulance take us to the other hospital where, after horrible hassles, a supercilious neurologist tried to tell me, standing over Art's body, what the scan showed. I made him follow me out of the room. He said, "He's unconscious. He can't hear." He told me that without surgery Art would die. He told me that with surgery he might die, too, given the state of his liver and his run-down condition. He said surgery could also save him, but, as a direct result of the surgery, he probably wouldn't be able to move his left side, speak, or see. I understood that I'd be able to keep my promise. I told him surgery was out. I asked, "If Art stayed in this hospital would you be his doctor?" He said that he would. I asked if we could return to the other hospital. He said we could. I asked if Art could have a painkiller now. He said he'd send some Demerol.

I went back into the examining room where Art was lying, eyes closed, grimacing in agony. I whispered in his ear, "They're going to give you something for the pain." Art was conscious enough to say his last words. He said, "It's about time."

Back at the original hospital he was put in intensive care. I called his regular doctor, who would now be the one to care for him, and explained that Art absolutely had to have his daily methadone. She understood. It was nighttime. I went home to bed.

The next morning I arrived to find Art still unconscious but dripping with sweat and writhing in pain. I asked the nurse in charge if Art had had his methadone. She said, "Methadone! That's the last thing he needs!" Out of Art's earshot, I told her he was dying and he wasn't going to do it painfully. He was an addict and he needed his methadone. I'd used a word she couldn't tolerate, and it wasn't "addict" and it wasn't "methadone." She threw a fit. She screamed at me. "Dying! Who told you he was dying!" I yelled back at her. I was angry, then, but I can see, now, that she'd been driven crazy by her job. I called our doctor who had Art moved to a regular room away from that peculiar environment. Art got his methadone. I sat by his bed and watched him relax. I stroked his hair. I sang to him, and when I finished, I saw a tear roll down his cheek. That's when it finally hit me. I was going to lose him. I cried and cried and cried.

I sat by his bedside for six days. I wept and talked to him and sang to him and joked to him and wept and kissed and touched him. The hospital issued a no visitors edict, but we let a few friends come. The band came all at once. George gave him a kiss goodbye. Journalists were calling the hospital. People were calling the house. I got our answering service to refer calls to a good friend of mine, a compassionate and convivial woman who was willing to deal with everyone. Our doctor and all the regular Kaiser nurses and technicians were absolutely wonderful. On the morning of June 15th I watched Art die.