Art Pepper: Notes from a Jazz Survivor

Art Pepper: Notes From A Jazz Survivor is an intensely personal, painfully revealing portraitof one of jazz' greatest alto saxophonists -- a remarkable expressive jazz soloist and composer who also was an addict, thief, alcoholic, womanizer and wildman.

Pepper's phenomenal musical gifts developed early.From the time he took up the saxophone at the age of 12, he proved such a natural that soon he was jamming around L.A. with musicians like Zoot Sims and Dexter Gordon.By the time he was 17, he was playing lead alto for Stan Kenton.But after this meteoric rise, his demons took over.On the first time he used heroin, he recalls, "Boy, if this is what the devil's got, it 's what I want.I knew that was the beginning of the end."Over the next 16 years he spent more time in prison than out, including two terms in San Quentin.

In candid interviews, he recounts his troubled marriage, dependence on drugs, prison terms, and luck in meeting his last wife Laurie, an articulate, compassionate defender of her errant husband.Through her devotion he was able to channel his immense reservoirs of pain, anger and frustration back into the lyric poetry of his playing.

For over half the film, Art leads a trio at a club date in Malibu.Instead of deteriorating over the years of addiction, incarceration and silence, his style had expanded and deepened -- his full ringing tone was unimpaired, his improvisations were brilliant and intense.After wasting so much of his life, we can only believe Art when he said, "Every time I play, I realize that it might be the last time.That's not being melodramatic.I just realize when you get to may age, things happen."