How Tall Was Art Pepper?

[JSngry]

?

[Larry Kart]

Having spoken to him at least once, my recollection is not very tall -- maybe 5-7 (my height) or 5-8.

[JSngry]

Thank you#

[AllenLowe]

I did spend a weird day with him, but mostly we drove around looking for drugs. But I do recall he was about my size, which is, as Larry says, between 5'7 and 5'8.

[Peter Friedman]

Curious as to why the question of his height?

[JSngry]

Well if you must know, my partners and I have been crafting an Art Pepper holographic concert package and we wanted to get it right. Because when we do the Central Avenue Reunion segment with him and Dexter, it better be beliveable.

[Justin V]

God forbid a straight answer. 

[JSngry]

No tickets to the holographic spectacular for you!

The real answer is that I was playing an Art Pepper record this morning and the question came to mind. I didn't bother asking why it did becsuse, why? It's, like, a friver''s license thing . Like, if there was a Topps Art Pepper card, then the Internet would have it.

And now, with this thread, the Internet DOES has it, for the next person, and for every next person, any person who wants to know but fears to speak to the wild informational orgy of untamed nformation that is Organissimo. Some people are bashful about certain things, and we need to embrace that without becoming it.

[sgcim]

He was an Eyetalian-American, just like me, and on the average they seem to be on the small side.. If he was Sicilian, then he was probably even smaller than 5'7.

Come to think of it, alto players seem to be smaller than tenor players. Frank Strozier, Phil Woods, Bird, Lou Donaldson, Cannonball, Steve Slagle, Gary Smulyan (he started as an alto player), Lee Konitz, Richie Cole, Gene Quill and Bud Shank. I don't know about Paul Desmond, and Jackie MacLean.

Davey Schildkraut was pretty big for an alto player, but he was playing tenor when I saw him. McPhereson seemed average.

Edited July 28, 2019 by sgcim

[Gheorghe]

I also don´t know About Paul Desmond, since I´m not really familiar with his Music or his Albums, but Jackie McLean was more short and hefty, he looked very Mingus like, lighter colur  than Bird or Miles, may bee also some Indian blood . 

About the heights of Art Pepper. I saw a photo of Dexter together with Art Pepper and there you can see the difference. But to be smaller than Dexter doens´t really mean that someone is small. 

[sidewinder]

1 hour ago, Gheorghe said:

but Jackie McLean was more short and hefty, he looked very Mingus like, lighter colur  than Bird or Miles, may bee also some Indian blood . 

I’ve stood right next to Jackie Mac - he was quite short, I would say 5’5” or 5’6”. Quite stocky. Always thought he had a bit of Italian in him - or maybe French?

Edited July 29, 2019 by sidewinder

[Gheorghe]

1 minute ago, sidewinder said:

I’ve stood right next to Jackie Mac - he was quite short, I would say 5’5” or 5’6”. Quite stocky. Always thought he had a bit of Italian in him - or maybe French?

That´s Right. I also saw him together with fellow musicians and he seemed to be short. But I never saw a musician who changed as much during the years like Jackie McLean. On early photos like on "Bluesnik" it seems to be another Person, very thin, and on later records he is quite hefty. Sometimes he has curled hair like a light skinned afro american and on other occasions he has straight hair, slicked back, sometimes like on "Old and New Gospels" he Looks almost White with reddish hair like a Scots man. 

But light skinned as he was, Kenny Drew wrote About him on the liner notes of his first Steeple Chase Album that he "is a black child of Harlem". 

I would have liked to stand next to Jackie Mac, I would have liked to tell him he is one of my all time favourites. 

[sidewinder]

Scottish? - I never thought of that. With a name like McLean it is quite possible. Bearing in mind also that Mingus had some Scots ancestry I think.

I did, most fortunately, get to chat with Jackie and tell him how much I liked his concert and that I was a big fan of his music. He was most kind and signed a concert flyer. 

Edited July 29, 2019 by sidewinder

[sgcim]

15 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

I also don´t know About Paul Desmond, since I´m not really familiar with his Music or his Albums, but Jackie McLean was more short and hefty, he looked very Mingus like, lighter colur  than Bird or Miles, may bee also some Indian blood . 

About the heights of Art Pepper. I saw a photo of Dexter together with Art Pepper and there you can see the difference. But to be smaller than Dexter doens´t really mean that someone is small. 

According to a search I did on Desmond's height, he measured 1.63m., which converts to a about 5'4. Some other alto players I worked with who were decidedly small were Chasey Dean, and Lenny(AKA Leo) Sinsgalli ). Lenny was a great player, and extremely talented arranger, who ghost-wrote Tony Bennett charts for Torrie Zito, and many others. Torrie showed up at the Memorial at St. Peters for Lenny, playing piano in the big band that played Lenny's great charts. I've went to memorials for musicians there before, but Lenny's was the only one that was so heavily attended, we had to stand in the back. Lenny was loved by every musician in NY back then. He wrote the jingle for Shaefer Beer ("Shaefer is the one beer to have, when you're having more than one").He was featured on a Claude Thornhill album from 1959 as alto sax player, and co-composer/arranger of "Texas Blues", and also played on a 1951 record of Buddy DeFranco in the sax section with Gene Quill, on alto.

The archetypal small alto player in my mind would have to be an excellent player named Chasey Dean. He played on some of Matt Matthews records for Dawn back in the 50s, and was with Phil Woods in the Charlie Barnett band. He put up Phil and Chan for a while after they got off the road with Barnett. He also played with on an album called "College Jazz" in a group that featured Sam Brown on guitar, and Dave Frishberg on piano. Chase must have been about 5'2 or smaller, and reminded me of a Scottish Terrier, because he always seemed to be 'barking' about something. he put out a few self-produced jazz CDs before his death. "Chasin' The Dean" was the title of one of them.

I can think of a few tall alto players (Richie Tabnik), but they were obviously just some genetic anomalies that should be encouraged to switch to tenor, to support my theory...

Edited July 29, 2019 by sgcim

[JSngry]

Med Flory was a big guy, but supposedly he was mocking about Warne Marsh, so fuck him, he was just tall, that's all.

[sgcim]

2 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Med Flory was a big guy, but supposedly he was mocking about Warne Marsh, so fuck him, he was just tall, that's all.

Yeah, fuck him, if he's gonna mock Warne- he was just tall. another genetic anomaly.

[Big Beat Steve]

20 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Med Flory was a big guy, but supposedly he was mocking about Warne Marsh, so fuck him, he was just tall, that's all.

"Big" or "tall"? I understand there is a difference there in (U.S.) English

[JSngry]

Both, big AND tall.

[Big Beat Steve]

I must admit that before this thread came up I had never realized the face of that 2nd tier actor often seen in 60s movies or series belonged to the one I had often listened to on that 10-inch Urbie Green Vanguard LP or on his excellent Jazzwave LP on Jubilee, etc. Quite a run ...

[Peter Friedman]

Sonny Stitt was on the tall side but also played tenor. James Moody who also played both alto and tenor was somewhat short.

interesting that it seems  Stitt played alto more than tenor, while Moody played more tenor than alto.

[Chuck Nessa]

I have met most of these folks and never measured them. Is this a thing?

[JSngry]

It's really not. (I hope...). Just a random thought that came to mind Saturday morning while listening to Intensity (where, to be honest, Frank Butler stole my show). Trying to get a mental image of Art Pepper playing that (or any other) record, he's pretty, uh...personal, right? Never had the privilege of seeing him in person while he was alive (or, come to think of it, after he wasn't), so, you know, ask the experts. Not unlike wondering what Eva Gabor's bra size was, a thought that came to mind while binging Green Acres (a project in progress, to be sure) and Brenda says, oh, she's kinda small-chested, I thought she'd have been bigger, how much you talk about how pretty she was (meeeeeeeeow), only the Internet has that information, if you can believe the internet.

 

[Larry Kart]

18 hours ago, sgcim said:

Yeah, fuck him, if he's gonna mock Warne- he was just tall. another genetic anomaly.

Despite his Warne blind spot and his resulting misbehavior toward Warne, Med was a good guy with a terrific sense of humor. I interviewed him while trying to assemble info on Don Joseph for a set of liner notes that never got done, nor did the album they were to be for, and his stories about the denizens of the bebop era were down to earth, wise, and priceless. BTW, my sense was that Med was something of a professional tough guy; I would think that his attitude toward Warne sprang from a) Warne's not being like that and b) perhaps from Warne's implicit sense of musical superiority to those who worshipped at the altar of bebop, which was the very rationale behind Supersax. I think that would have set Med off.

 

[sgcim]

4 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Despite his Warne blind spot and his resulting misbehavior toward Warne, Med was a good guy with a terrific sense of humor. I interviewed him while trying to assemble info on Don Joseph for a set of liner notes that never got done, nor did the album they were to be for, and his stories about the denizens of the bebop era were down to earth, wise, and priceless. BTW, my sense was that Med was something of a professional tough guy; I would think that his attitude toward Warne sprang from a) Warne's not being like that and b) perhaps from Warne's implicit sense of musical superiority to those who worshipped at the altar of bebop, which the very rationale behind Supersax. I think that would have set Med off.

 

A lot of sax players put Warne down for his sound back then.

[Gheorghe]

Well, Med Flory I think I remember from Supersax. On those Supersax albums also Warne Marsh was playing. But what´s that Story About Med Flory and Wayne Marsh ? Didn´t they work well together.  

The Supersax was en vogue for a short time I think, some of the guys around me started to buy it.  I also had two or three Albums with them, but after a first "wow" I stopped listening to it, since if I want to hear Birds solos I hear Bird, and since I was trying to understand some of the Secrets of that Music, I thought it´s better to listen to the original, and anyway, nobody can have the Sound and phrasings of Bird. Bird was unique.