Shorty Snitched Art?

If you've been following this blog lately, you'll know that I have been on a real Art Pepper kick and have been listening to him nonstop. I have also mentioned that Art had an unfortunate relationship with heroin and spent much of the '60s locked up because of it.

Early today I read something shocking.

Art's widow accused his best friend, trumpeter Shorty Rogers, of turning stool pigeon and it was because of him that Art ended up in getting busted and sent to San Quentin.  She made the claim in the liner notes to the latest in series of unreleased recordings (that I will write about soon).

Do you think it's true?

As you can see in the photo to the left, he does have an awful goatee which looks quite villainous.  I mean, I like Shorty's music (he is one of the princes of west coast jazz for good reason, but he's no Art Pepper...) but would Laurie Pepper make an accusation like this after all this time if there wasn't some validity to it?

I've said it several times, my friends, but the more I learn about Art the more I think that there is a great movie waiting to be made about him.

I'm concerned an Art Pepper biopic would be painful to watch for us hard-core Art fans as they would surely destroy the great story by making it a romance with Brad Pitt and the starlet of the moment, but the soundtrack would be fantastic!