Straight Life: The Story Of Art Pepper
- 3 Nov 2022
- 9781838857950
- £16.99
- 624 pp
- 129×198mm
- 16 May 2013
- 9781782112266
- £13.59
- 624 pp
In a few words
The story of Art Pepper
In a few words
The story of Art Pepper
Straight Life demonstrates again and again that Pepper had the ear and memory and interpretative lyricism of a first-rate novelist . . . He did five years in San Quentin and his descriptions of life there are relentless and brilliant . . . He had no illusions nor did he have any remorse or self-pity . . . He was an eloquent and gifted man
One of the most memorable jazz memoirs
Straight Life demonstrates again and again that Pepper had the ear and memory and interpretative lyricism of a first-rate novelist . . . He did five years in San Quentin and his descriptions of life there are relentless and brilliant . . . He had no illusions nor did he have any remorse or self-pity . . . He was an eloquent and gifted man
One of the most memorable jazz memoirs
More about
the book
Art Pepper was described as the greatest alto-saxophonist of the post-Charlie Parker generation. Straight Life, originally narrated on tape to his wife Laurie, is an explosive work chronicling his work amidst a life dealing with alcoholism, heroin addiction, armed robberies and imprisonment.
The result is an autobiography like no other, a masterpiece of the spoken word, shaped into a genuine work of literature.
More about
the book
Art Pepper was described as the greatest alto-saxophonist of the post-Charlie Parker generation. Straight Life, originally narrated on tape to his wife Laurie, is an explosive work chronicling his work amidst a life dealing with alcoholism, heroin addiction, armed robberies and imprisonment.
The result is an autobiography like no other, a masterpiece of the spoken word, shaped into a genuine work of literature.
A tough, dizzying, hard and honest book that will haunt anybody who opens it
The most powerful, mind-riveting, brutally honest document I've ever read by an artist
A shattering portrait of genius confronted with human weakness . . . possibly the best memoir ever written by a jazz musician. A story that ranks with The Autobiography of Malcolm X in its direct honesty and power
This is a book of the jazz life . . . Pepper’s voice, which rings clear (in that Bukowski–Fante vein), floats above the story with great assuredness, and is never less than aware of both the hilarity and the sad desperation of his life, the appalling darkness and the flashes of great beauty and compassion
A tough, dizzying, hard and honest book that will haunt anybody who opens it
The most powerful, mind-riveting, brutally honest document I've ever read by an artist
A shattering portrait of genius confronted with human weakness . . . possibly the best memoir ever written by a jazz musician. A story that ranks with The Autobiography of Malcolm X in its direct honesty and power
