After five days we were frantic, but at last the warrant officer came back. He said, “I’ve got great news!” We’d been ordered to Bournemouth. We landed at Southampton, where they had trucks waiting for us that took us to a convalescent center in an old city in England, a huge camp filled with people who’d been wounded in battle. If they weren’t dead but were wounded so badly they could never fight again, they were sent to the States, but if there was any chance at all of mending them up enough to put them back into battle, they were sent to England to one of these centers. Our function was to play for these people and give them a little entertainment, a little joy.
I stayed at the convalescent center for eight or nine months, playing and watching the VI and V2 rockets fly overhead, bombing London, and then I became an MP.
At the end of 1945 a lot of people were released from the war. They were sent home if they had enough points for longevity. Most of the guys in the band had been in the army for years so they qualified to go home, and rather than getting replacements they decided to do away with the band. I was put in the MPs and sent to London.
(Alan Dean) It was in the forties toward the end of the war, and I was singing with a small band in a hotel in Southampton. Southampton in those days was quite a place because it was more or less a clearinghouse for all the G.I.s who has fought in various areas of Europe during the war. They would come back to Southampton, and, according to priorities, would be put aboard troop ships and go back home, As I remember, Art and the guys that played with him in the military band had the unfortunate job of playing for them every morning as they took off to go back to the States. Of course the band remained behind.
I first met Art, I suppose, one night when he and a couple of other fellows came to us and said, “Hey, we like your band. Can we sit in?” We were, I must admit, a little reluctant at first, because it had been our experience that when a G.I. would say, “Can I sit in with you, I used to play with Tommy Dorsey,” it usually turned out that he hadn’t played with Tommy Dorsey at all. He could barely play his instrument. And it was bit embarrassing. But these guys seemed to be genuine, so we said, “Sure. By all means, sit in.” Well, of course, when they started to play we knew that they were fine musicians, particularly Art, who just . . . absolutely . . . just stopped us in our tracks, he was so good. And, after that, they would come into the hotel almost every evening and sit in and play a set with us, and we became good friends.
The engagement, which was for several months at this hotel, came to an end, and we went back to London, and almost at the same time the military band that Art was playing with was disbanded because some of their members were being sent back on the priorities system. They broke it up and sent Art back with a few of the other guys to London, and, of all things, made Art an MP, which I don’t think he was very happy about. He wasn’t cut out for that kind of action.
London was really quite an exciting place to be in those days. There was a sort of free-for-all atmosphere. The war had taken away a lot of the stuffy social stigma that I remember England having before the war (I haven’t lived in England for many, many years now). I know the war made people more together. They had nothing to lose so they had a good time. I know I did. Oh, there was rationing, and they had lots of bad air raids and that sort of thing, but generally life wasn’t that bad.
My dad had a pub in London, which is only significant because good liquor was very hard to come by during the war, and my dad, having a pub, used to get a fairly good supply and would always keep a few back for me or himself or his friends. Whenever Art and the guys needed a drink, they’d just buzz me, and I could usually rustle something up. I was always amused when I’d get a phone call from Art sometime around midnight, and he’d say, “I can’t take this MP thing. Have you got any gin?” I would say, “Yeah, I can get a bottle of gin.” “Well, get in your car and meet me on the corner. . .” of Picadilly and something or other. I’d get in my car and park, and suddenly, out of the darkness, this small figure with a huge white hat would loom up, and it would be Art, and he’d take a quick look around and hop in the back of the car and dispose of about a half a bottle of gin, and he’d say, “Well, now I feel more like it.” And back he’d go on the beat again. Studiously avoiding problems. He went the other way when he heard a fracas. He just wasn’t interested, and I didn’t blame him either.
The fellows came to my house on many occasions, and we used to sit ‘til all hours of the morning playing records and getting boozed. On one occasion, one of the guys got hold of something that resembled grass, but I don’t think it was. I didn’t smoke anything, even ordinary cigarettes; I still don’t, so I didn’t participate. Fortunately. Because the other guys smoked whatever it was and were all violently ill and fell about the place. I don’t think they tried it again.
Jazz was pretty hard to come by in London in those days, but there was this one place run by a man called Feldman who had three sons who were aspiring musicians—Robert, Victor, and Monte. Victor, who was then about ten, played the drums, and of course, it’s the same Victor Feldman who’s one of the top guys in the studio scene in Hollywood now. He played amazingly well as a child, and then took up vibes and piano, and, as you know, he’s quite a giant.
Feldman’s was the place where jazz happened, and Art would go there and sit in and play and, of course, made a tremendous impression on the musicians around him because his technique, his fluency, his complete command of his instrument, was far ahead of any of the other musicians around. None of the English saxophone players . . . There were some good ones, but they just didn’t have it all together like Art did. I think perhaps one of the reasons .. . I can’t remember knowing anyone, ever, quite so dedicated to their music as Art was. Even when he was doing those awful MP things, walking around until five o’clock in the morning with a great white hat and a nightstick, he would grab a couple of hours sleep and a shower and go straight to a rehearsal room and practice his instrument for hours and hours on end with very little sleep. For him it was more important to maintain his ability and improve, and he did it studiously, without any hesitation. No matter what else was going on that had to happen. And I always admired that tremendous ability he had to dedicate himself to his work.
One time in Feldman’s, a young fellow, oh, he wouldn’t have been more than sixteen I suppose (I was about twenty at that time), a young kid, asked if he could sit in with us. We asked him, “What do you play?” He said clarinet, and we said, “Don’t you play saxophone as well?” He said no, only clarinet. We said, “Well . . . alright.” He played beautifully, and we asked him what his name was, and he said, “Johnny Dankworth.” He said, “I’m actually studying to be a classical musician, but I love jazz, and I thought I’d like to try it.” And I remember Art asked me who he was, and I said I didn’t know. Art said, “Well, he has more promise than any musician I’ve heard in England to date.” And I think he was very perceptive where that’s concerned, because Dankworth, as you know, turned out to be one of the finest jazz musicians England has produced, and he’s still very prominent along with his wife, Cleo Laine.
Art, of course, and the other guys subsequently went back to the States, and I didn’t hear from them again until 1951, by which time I had become a name pop singer in England. I had won all the popularity polls and I had made a few recordings; some of them had sold very well. And, travelling around, I worked with a few cats from the States, and they suggested I try my hand in the States. I decided to do just that. Late in 1951 I emigrated. I brought all my records with me under my arm and a lot of press clippings and whatever money I had and off I went. A few days after I got to New York, I saw an ad that the Stan Kenton Orchestra was going to be playing at Carnegie Hall. I had every one of his records I could lay my hands on, and the thought of seeing the Kenton band live was just too much. I bought tickets in the first or second row and sat there waiting for the band to come on. When they walked on, who was sitting right in the middle of the sax section playing lead alto but Art Pepper! I was thrilled to death. I ran around backstage afterwards and we had a big backslapping contest—”How are you? What the hell are you doing in the States?” And that was actually the last time I ever saw