GA Russell

Art Pepper's Widow Laurie Tells the Rest of the Story In the Companion Volume to Classic Jazz Bio Straight Life, "ART: Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman," To Be Published May 16 May 5, 2014 Art Pepper told his sexy, sordid, and exciting true adventure stories to his lover, Laurie, who put them in a book. She quizzed him (and those who knew him) unrelentingly over seven years, editing and structuring a narrative to which she dedicated all her energy. Straight Life by Art and Laurie Pepper (Da Capo) was published in 1979. It was a critical success and remains a classic of its kind, the subject of college literary and music studies. Laurie went on to marry Art and manage his resurgent career, touring the world with his band. "Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman" was the headline some editor gave a newspaper interview Laurie did while the band was in Australia in 1981, and she's now stolen "that perfect title" for her memoir. ART: Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman (APMCorp) describes her marriage to the deeply troubled, drug-addicted, madly gifted artist. "That marriage was the making of me," says Laurie. "Some people go to grad school or join the Marines. I married a genius who valued and inspired me and challenged me to use MY gifts. We had a difficult, powerful partnership. I had to tell that story." She says she also needs to set the record straight and clarify her role: "People think I was some kind of little wifey-saint who rescued him. And Art encouraged them in that. But he knew how truly crazy I could be. We rescued each other." Laurie Pepper was born in 1940 in Los Angeles to a family of radicals and artists. She grew up in New York and Los Angeles, attended U.C. Berkeley, and was photographer for the legendary L.A. Free Press during the 1960s but went astray and wound up in rehab where she met Art Pepper. Since Art's death in 1982, she has continued to produce and promote his music. Her very small label, Widow's Taste, has released a new album of previously unreleased Art Pepper performances every year since 2006. ART will be available from Amazon in paperback on May 16 -- on Art and Laurie's wedding anniversary. It consists of 382 pages, with approximately 100 photos and a complete index. It will sell, in the U.S., for $20.00. An E-book version will be available on June 16, and a downloadable audiobook will be released on November 16 along with a CD release of some of the key Art Pepper performances Laurie describes in the memoir. * Advance Praise for ART Forged at the collision point of true art and real life, this brutally honest book is an engrossing journey across the hard countries of love and loss and redemption. It inspires the belief that love can overcome all obstacles and that creative talent knows no bounds. It was impossible for me to put it down. --Michael Connelly, Author of the Harry Bosch series of novels "I was no angel," Laurie Pepper advises at the start of this stingingly candid memoir, and in truth she is a wonderfully devilish writer, her pen a razor dipped in sulfur, her memory a lead-lined cave from which nothing escapes or goes unexamined. Everyone who knows the skillful craftsmanship she brought to Straight Life, the masterpiece she made of Art Pepper's life, will find it here again, in service to her own story, which would be reason enough to celebrate this gripping book. But there is another: a wittingly different perspective on Art's tale--this good wife was every inch his match. --Gary Giddins, Author of Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams and Celebrating Bird Music, love, gossip--along with mania and addiction, pain and calamity: Laurie Pepper writes with grace and candor about all of it. Joining Straight Life as one of the best jazz lives, and telling the story behind that great story, her new book deserves all the meanings of "Art" in its title. --Robert Pinsky, Poet Read the introduction to ART here. Photo credits: Phil Bray (book cover), Hugh Kenny (Laurie), Herb Nolan (Laurie & Art). Web Sites: lauriepepper.net artpepper.net Follow Laurie:

BeBop, if you get to Raleigh, let me know!

Through May 31, Murphy Oil gas stations are offering $25 gift cards, including Amazon and Visa, for $20 cash. http://www.murphyusa.com/Get-Deals/#!s2

My favorite Mosaic.

Happy Birthday Alexander!

http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-efrem-zimbalist-20140503,0,4410593,full.story#axzz30X7nenWA

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140502005973/en/Statement-Stephanie-Zimbalist-Efrem-Zimbalist-III#.U2SGWqImSUl

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., has passed away at age 95. In all of television, my favorite character was Dandy Jim Buckley. RIP. http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/05/03/efrem-zimbalist-jr-star-fbi-dead-at-5/?intcmp=latestnews

Thanks, guys! I'll follow up on it.

PS - I don't get cable. It looks to me like I can get espn3.com anyway with Roku. Is that correct?

There is an ad in this morning's paper for a "Roku HD streaming Player" for $39.99. It's a refurb. It says, "Built in Wi-Fi" and "Works with virtually any TV." I don't have wi-fi service for my internet or my computer. Would this Roku work anyway? Does anyone here have Roku and recommend it? Thanks!

The league is currently selling its "Riders Grey Cup Champions" merchandise at 25% off. http://www.cflshop.ca/cfl-special-events/browse/team/2RIDERS/perpage/48 ***** It looks like Steven Jyles may retire. He failed to report this week to the Lions' voluntary mini-camp. http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=450766

BeBop, perhaps there is a local St. Vincent de Paul location which would be interested.

Does anyone in the Bay Area know of this lady? Dr. Margie Baker, San Francisco Musical Legend, To Release Her 4th CD, "Margie Baker Sings with So Many Stars," On the Consolidated Artists Productions (CAP) Label, May 20 CD Release Shows Scheduled for June 1 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel Ballroom, Burlingame, & June 14 at Mildred Owens Concert Hall, Pacifica April 30, 2014 Margie Baker's storied career as a jazz and blues vocalist started late, when she was 39, but was long encouraged by her mentor Dizzy Gillespie and eventually took her to the world stage. Though the 80-year-old Baker came even later to recording, she's on a roll now, affiliated with longtime Gillespie pianist Mike Longo's Consolidated Artists Productions (CAP) label. Her 4th CD, and third for CAP, is Margie Baker Sings with So Many Stars, and is due for release on May 20. So Many Stars is a two-disc set on which Baker surrounds herself with some of the most gifted instrumentalists in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Her relaxed and swinging phrasing, warm tone, and precise enunciation inform every number, including songs by Ellington ("Come Sunday," "In a Mellow Tone," "I'm Just a Lucky So and So"), Monk ("'Round Midnight"), and Horace Silver ("Señor Blues"), as well as standards like "You've Changed," "Deed I Do," and "Lazy Afternoon." Among her accompanists, whom she calls "Margie's musical galaxy," are pianist Shota Osabe, guitarist Rodney Jones, saxophonists Jules Broussard and Melecio Magdaluyo, bassists Harley White and Chuck Bennett, and percussionist John Santos, a sixth-grade student of Baker's when she taught in the San Francisco Unified School District. "This is a tribute to them," says Baker of the players on the CD. "These are not egocentric, big-time musicians, but they're wonderful musicians. We work so much and so well together." Margie Baker was born October 11, 1933 "in a shack in the sticks" near Center, Texas, in Shelby County. "Black people were extremely deprived back there in those sticks," she says. "That's where I was born -- from dirt-poor, beautiful, spiritual people." After her parents divorced, mother and daughter relocated to San Francisco at the onset of World War II. Her mother found work as a riveter at shipyards in San Francisco and Oakland, and the two lived at first in a cold-water flat in San Francisco's overwhelmingly African-American Fillmore District. Upon graduating with honors from Girls High School at age 15, Baker a received a scholarship to the University of California Berkeley, where she spent two years before transferring to San Francisco State College and earned both bachelor's and master's degrees. Years later, she used earnings from her part-time singing career to enroll at the University of San Francisco, from which she received a Ph.D in Education. Baker moved from the classroom into school district headquarters as Director of Compensatory Education, where she oversaw the distribution of federal funds to help low-income children in reading and math. When Dizzy Gillespie, her friend since she was a 17-year-old fashion model and a sophomore at UC Berkeley, finally heard her sing, he offered to take her on the road, but her responsibilities as a teacher, and eventually as an administrator, came first. She would, however, go on to sit in with his band when their paths crossed in Tokyo, New York City, Oakland, and San Francisco. She retired in 2004, after 48 years of service as an educator. Baker had done very little singing in public before the guitarist at Henri's Room at the Top on the 46th floor of the San Francisco Hilton Hotel coaxed her to sit in one night. She sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." Hotel magnates Conrad and Barron Hilton were in attendance and offered her a job, which she accepted. She spent the next 18 years singing at Henri's -- two nights a week during the school year, five in the summer -- as well as for special affairs at the Las Vegas Hilton, where such celebrities at Tony Bennett, Elvis Presley, and Elizabeth Taylor heard her sing. She also became a regular performer at the Monterey Jazz Festival and traveled the world with the festival's touring shows that included such jazz greats as James Moody and Richie Cole. For the past decade, Baker has sung during brunch every Sunday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel near the San Francisco International Airport, as well as at other hotels, clubs, and churches. As the 20 tracks on the new CD indicate, Margie Baker remains a song stylist of the first order. The only thing that has really changed is, she jokingly admits, "I don't shake my booty as much." Baker will be appearing 6/1 at the Regency Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Hotel/San Francisco Airport in Burlingame, 5:00-10:00 pm, with many of the musicians heard on So Many Stars; and 6/14 at the Mildred Owens Concert Hall in Pacifica, 7:30 pm, with Keith Williams, piano; Jim Nichols, guitar; Michael O'Neill, tenor saxophone; Chuck Bennett, bass; and Jerry Pannone, drums. Web Site: margiebakervocalist.com

Happy Birthday impossible!

Happy Birthday Lazaro!

What Four Freshmen albums do you have to offer?

Here's a map that lists every craft beer/brewery available in your state. http://seekabrew.com/distro/index.html

Happy Birthday Joe!

Happy Birthday Niko!

Thanks Steve and Bob!

Miles - Bootleg, vol. 1 - 14.97 GBP http://www.amazon.co.uk/Miles-Davis-Quintet-Europe-Bootleg/dp/B005ARYEY6?SubscriptionId=AKIAJ7T5BOVUVRD2EFYQ&tag=camelalerts-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B005ARYEY6

From time to time I see something that looks interesting on the Jasmine label, which is based in London. Wikipedia says very little about them. Are their issues licensed or PD? Can anyone vouch for their sound quality?

Chuck, I too send my condolences to you, Ann and her family.

Wagon Train - Complete First Season - $19.98 http://www.oldies.com/product-view/53102O.html?c=ON436&utm_source=OLDIES.com+Emails&utm_campaign=7c3d7df486-send_436&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f79786119b-7c3d7df486-187732661 ***** Wagon Train - 24 episodes - $11.98 http://www.oldies.com/product-view/0869ED.html?c=ON436&utm_source=OLDIES.com+Emails&utm_campaign=7c3d7df486-send_436&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f79786119b-7c3d7df486-187732661 ***** Wide Country - Complete Series - $14.98 http://www.oldies.com/product-view/2128ED.html?c=ON436&utm_source=OLDIES.com+Emails&utm_campaign=7c3d7df486-send_436&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f79786119b-7c3d7df486-187732661 ***** Interpol Investigates - Season One - $5.98 http://www.oldies.com/product-view/97273N.html?c=ON436&utm_source=OLDIES.com+Emails&utm_campaign=7c3d7df486-send_436&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f79786119b-7c3d7df486-187732661