Free The Cool School by Glenn O'Brien Page A

Hall and he’d capture that crowd with another approach. We’d be at the Kavakos in Washington, D.C., a jazz club filled with the black pimp type cats and the hustling broads and the dope fiends—and he’d capture them. He would observe, study the people, and win them.
    One time we did “City of Glass” at the Civic Opera House in Chicago. It was written by Bob Graettinger, a revolutionary composition, an incredibly hard musical exercise; it was a miracle we got through it. Bob conducted it, a tall, thin guy, about six, four: he looked like a living skeleton conducting, like a dead man with sunken eyes, a musical zombie. He took us through it, and he finished, and he turned around to the people, and he nodded, and the people didn’t do nothin’. The place was packed; we’d played the shit out of this thing and now there wasn’t a sound. They didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know what to do. I’m looking at Stan and I’m thinking, “Well, what’s going to happen now? What’s he going to do now ?” Stan looked at the audience. I saw his mind, you could see it turning, and all of a sudden he leaped out onto the middle of the stage, gestured at us to rise, swung his body around again to the audience, and bam! They started clapping, and they clapped and clapped and clapped, and then they stood up with an ovation that lasted for maybe five minutes. He did it all himself. Stan did it with his little maneuver.
    Once when I was interviewed for down beat they asked me about Stan, and I told the interviewer, “If Stan had entered the field of religion he would have been greater than Billy Graham.” And Stan didn’t like it. But he didn’t understand it. Maybe he thought I was puttinghim down; maybe he thought I was belittling religion and ranking him for being a phony, but that wasn’t my intention. I was talking about his strength. He was the strongest man I ever met.
    I traveled with the band: Shelly Manne was playing drums; Conte Candoli was playing trumpet; Bud Shank was in the sax section; June Christy was singing; Laurindo Almeida was playing guitar; and I was featured with the band. We played a lot of different places, and I was getting a name, a following. At first Patti came along with me, so it was fun, but one day in New York, while we were working at the Paramount Theater, Patti got a telegram from my father saying that Patricia was sick. I don’t remember what she had. I didn’t even pay attention to it, I was so angry. To me it was as if Patricia had gotten sick purposely to rank things for me. So Patti left, and that was it. For all intents and purposes that was the end of our marriage. Patti started feeling it was her duty to stay with Patricia.
    It was impossible to take Patricia with us. We tried to take her once to Salt Lake City. We drove instead of traveling on the bus. I bought a car, but all the oil ran out of the car, and we got stranded, and then Patricia got sick. It was impossible. It was too impossible. The mileage we had to cover was too demanding. They both went home, and I sold the car, and that was the last time Patti was on the road with me.
    I really became bitter then because I was so lonely and I couldn’t stand not having a woman. There were chicks following the band that were very groovy, that really dug me; they’d send notes and hit on me and wait for me after the job, but I’d rarely have anything to do with them because I felt so guilty when I did.
    I N 1948 we were playing the Paramount Theater again in New York. Vic Damone was the single attraction. Sometimes we’d play seven shows a day, and there were a bunch of young girls who used to come around to all the performances. One day after a show, four of these girls came backstage and left a note. They wanted to meet me. I went to the stage door and said hello to them. I brought them into the dressing room and talked to them; they were sixteen, seventeen.They said they wanted to form an Art Pepper Fan Club. Would