4A • February 23, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
Views from the Rock
INSPIRED BY THE FLYING EAGLE
‘A
re you familiar with the
saxophonist Jim Pepper?”
Cannon Beach artist, guru
and former jazz drummer Rex Amos
quizzed. Amos knows I toot around on
the horn.
“I’m familiar with Art Pepper,” I
said, referring to the renowned alto
player, with Chet Baker and Shelly
Manne among the founders of the West
Coast jazz scene.
But he meant Jim Pepper — “The
Flying Eagle.”
From Kaw-Muscogee Native Amer-
ican roots — his grandfather was a
ceremonial leader — Pepper’s remark-
able career resulted in 50 recordings
as bandleader, artist and composer.
Pepper was equally at home with the
Native American community, Port-
land city scene and international jazz
avant garde. “Witchi-Tai To” released
on “Pepper’s Pow Wow” in 1969,
when Pepper was 28, is the only hit to
feature an authentic Native American
chant in the history of the Billboard
pop charts.
As a teenager Pepper performed at
jazz clubs in Portland, soon moving
into the upper tier of jazz players.
He joined Free Spirits in 1966, the
group musicologists call the first jazz-
rock fusion band. You can hear them
on the internet: stylized sitar and blue-
eyed soul harmonies revolutionary at
the time, complemented by Pepper’s
voice on flute and saxophone, a shout-
out to the universe.
“They were so different that no one
knew what to do with them,” eastern
Washington-based saxophone player
Barry “River” Bergstrom recalled.
Original sound
Bergstrom “discovered” the music
of Jim Pepper in the mid-1970s.
“One day I attended a concert by
Tom Grant and his band,” Bergstrom
said, referring to the renowned Port-
land jazz pianist. “They didn’t have a
saxophonist with them, but there was
one particular song that really resonat-
ed with me.”
The song was “Witchi-Tai To.”
“I knew I had never heard it
before,” Bergstrom said. “After the
concert I was talking with Tom and
the guys and asked what that tune was.
They all laughed and said, ‘Oh that’s a
song by an Indian guy from Portland.’”
“Witchi-Tai To” was the begin-
ning of his journey; Bergstrom felt
Pepper’s music gave his life purpose.
He transcribed by ear everything he
could find of Pepper’s and talked to
anyone who knew anything about him.
“It became a very self-affirming thing
for me,” Bergstrom said. “Jim and his
music were coming from a very deep
emotional place.”
Horn players strived to capture Pep-
per’s sound by playing the same type
of horn he played, Bergstrom said.
And what a sound — described by
one writer as a “splintered, congested
wail” climbing into the stratosphere.
Though he immersed himself in
Pepper’s sound, Bergstrom believes
Pepper’s message is one of finding
your own voice. “Jim would be the
first to say to them: ‘Don’t sound like
me! Sound like you!’ I mean, how
could you do anything else?”
Proclamation
Sean Aaron Cruz bought the Pepper
family home in suburban Parkrose
H
Publisher
Kari Borgen
Editor
R.J. Marx
Circulation
Manager
Jeremy Feldman
Production
Manager
John D. Bruijn
hat to do on a wet gray day? Drink coffee. Read a
book.
A lot of people say what they like most about
winter is how the gray weather affords more opportunities to
read. My book group is reading “The Other Alcott,” a novel
by Elise Hooper, a literary fiction based on the life of May
Alcott, Louisa May Alcott’s baby sister. In real life and the
novel, May chafes at how she’s been portrayed in her sister’s
first book, “Little Women,” a novel based on the real life
Alcott sisters. To make matters worse, while the novel itself
is deemed a success, May’s illustrations for the novel are
met with critical ridicule. May, a trained artist who studied
with painting masters in Boston and then Europe, revolts
against living under her more successful sister’s thumb, the
most difficult issue being that it’s Louisa who provides most
of the financial support for her younger sister’s art career. If
it weren’t for book group, I’d never have read the book, but
I found myself drawn in, even though as a child I despised
“Little Women.”
As soon as I put
it down, however, I
plunged into a copy
VIEW FROM
of James Joyce’s
THE PORCH
“The Dubliners”
EVE MARX
I took out of the
library. While I
am very fond of
all the bookstores
in the immediate
area, there’s only so
many books I can
buy. I picked it up
because not long
ago I was having a
conversation in a
coffee shop with a
man who said he’d
always planned
on reading James
Joyce, but being
a slow reader, he
EVE MARX/FOR CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
felt put off by the
length and depth of If the rain keeps up, try “Ulysses.”
“Ulysses”; “Finneg-
an’s Wake” was out of the question. He remembered reading
something by Joyce at his prep school in ninth grade, but he
couldn’t remember the name.
“Most likely it was ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man,’” I volunteered. “Many people read that in ninth or 10th
grade.”
I suggested if he wanted to read something quintessential-
ly Joyce that would only take a few days, he try “The Dead,”
a story Joyce published in 1914. It’s the final story, almost a
novella, in the collection called “The Dubliners.” The story
takes place almost entirely at a holiday party in Dublin hosted
at the home of a pair of middle class spinsters and their
grown niece who lives with them. The party is a musicale
with singers and dancing and there is a special guest, a tenor
who has sung on a London stage. The spinsters’ nephew,
Gabriel Conroy, arrives late with his wife Gretta. A frisson
of tension rears its head between Conroy and a female guest
who accuses Conroy of not being Irish enough and support-
ing the English political control of Ireland. Conroy, discomfit-
ed, is already anxious about a speech and toast he’s promised
to give. But what spoils the evening for him entirely is learn-
ing by night’s end about a young man named Michael Furey,
long dead, who still captures his wife’s heart and romantic
imagination. Before this evening, he never knew of the young
man. My favorite part of the story, however, isn’t this part.
What I love most is a short section that takes place by the
front door just as the party is breaking up.
“Good-night, Mr. D’Arcy. Good-night, Miss O’Cal-
laghan.”
“Good-night, Miss Morkan.”
“Good-night, again.”
“Good-night, all. Safe home.”
“Good-night. Good night.”
I was ruminating on the sonorous beauty of Joyce’s prose
I sat nursing a coffee at Sleepy Monk in Cannon Beach.
It was a drizzly afternoon, and chilly. I thought about how
coastal Ireland probably doesn’t look or feel much different
from Oregon’s north coast. The winter weather is much the
same: rain, rain, and more rain. I thought about my friend, the
former Lady Self, who I met in Bedford, New York, over a
decade ago, not long before she married an Englishman who
was in the House of Lords. He owned a small castle on the
Irish coast. The marriage didn’t last and she had to relinquish
the title, although I believe she got the house. I imagined how,
like me, she might be passing a little time on a late February
afternoon in a charming café, eyeing a cheddar-and-bacon
scone or a molasses cookie before regretfully thinking of her
waistline, saying, “That will just be coffee (or tea), please.”
W
FILE PHOTO
“Pepper’s Pow Wow,” the album that introduced the song “Witchi-Tai To.”
CANNON SHOTS
R.J. MARX
HOW MUCH MORE
AMERICAN COULD
ANY MUSIC BE?”
in 2002, 10 years after Jim Pepper’s
death from cancer in 1992.
Cruz had no idea who had owned it
before him until Pepper’s mother Floy
Pepper and sister Suzie Pepper Henry
asked if they could see their former
home. He agreed, and as they left, they
presented Cruz with a CD of “Pepper’s
Pow Wow.”
A longtime jazz fan, the music
transported Cruz back to a 1970 con-
cert in Santa Rosa, California.
Guitarist Larry Coryell was opening
for headliner rock ’n’ roller Chuck
Berry. “Everybody was there for
Chuck Berry,” Cruz said. “I was there
for Coryell.”
Cruz was the only person clapping,
he recalled, amid a restless audi-
ence waiting for Berry’s “Johnnie B.
Goode” and “Roll Over Beethoven.”
“Then Coryell says to the audience,
‘I want to introduce my tenor saxo-
phone player — he’s a real Indian.’”
That’s when the magic happened,
Cruz recalled. “Pepper started to play
and he changed the room. The audi-
ence was singing, they were dancing
on their chairs — he was monumental!
And he sounded like nobody I’d ever
heard before.”
In 2005, Cruz served as Oregon
State Sen. Avel Gordly’s chief of staff.
Gordly, the first African-American
elected to the Oregon Senate, was so
inspired by Pepper’s achievements
she asked Cruz to draft a proclamation
honoring Pepper. “I knew this music
was important in a musicological
FAMILY OF JIM PEPPER
Jim Pepper
sense,” Cruz said.
In years to come, Cruz organized
the Jim Pepper Native Arts Festival, a
yearly event, including the 2013 con-
cert which brought together original
members of Free Spirits.
Cruz intends to help keep Pepper’s
legacy alive. An annual festival will re-
turn to Parkrose in September with the
theme “Making the Visible Visible.”
“There’s a lot of timeless music and
it’s got to get out,” Cruz said. “That’s
the mission I’m on. I promised Jim’s
mom to do everything make sure Jim
got the recognition he deserved.”
Bergstrom tells of the time the jazz
trumpet player Don Cherry took Pep-
per to Africa for the first time. “The
people there were really struck by
Jim’s music,” Bergstrom said. “They
said that it was the ‘most American’
music that they had every heard. It
almost gives me chills when I say that.
Because think about it — an Amer-
ican Indian, or Native or whatever
— is taking songs he learned from
his grandfather and jazz harmonies he
had accumulated over the years. How
much more American could any music
be?”
Binoculars at the ready for spring birding
ello again dear readers and
fellow birders! After what has
felt like a lengthy bit of time,
I am once again willing and able to
assemble stories about our feathered
friends. The timing couldn’t be better as
the daylight gets longer!
It’s going to be an exciting bird
year for me, as I have decided to once
again get out as often as I can, often
neglecting chores and family, to see as
many birds as I can! I don’t like to use
the common catch phrase, “big year”
as that denotes an attempt to minimize
birds as a number on a list and to com-
pete against a previous year of birding.
In the past, this had been a part
of my competitive nature which is
now giving way to a more gentle
approach. I recently came upon a line
from Thoreau’s writings in regards
to scheduling. It read: “I love a broad
margin to my life.” This means so much
more to me than having time between
appointments. I am making an attempt
Read any great
books lately?
BIRD NOTES
SUSAN PETERSON
to pause, to look and actually see the
birds, their behaviors, the habitat and
wonders of this beautiful planet. (We
will see if I can hold onto that through-
out the year!) Maybe I’ll name it a “get
out there year.”
So I wish you good fortune, hoping
that you too will have a year of enjoy-
ing the beauty of this amazing part of
the world and maybe you’ll see some
birds!
Upcoming birding events
Plan to attend the Necanicum Bird
Day on April 7 at the Bob Chisholm
Center in Seaside and then the Annual
Birdathon Fundraiser for the Wildlife
Center of the North Coast on April 14.
Advertising Sales
Holly Larkins
Classified Sales
Danielle Fisher
Staff writer
Brenna Visser
Contributing
writers
Rebecca Herren
Katherine Lacaze
Eve Marx
Nancy McCarthy
CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
The Cannon Beach Gazette is
published every other week by EO
Media Group.
1555 N. Roosevelt, Seaside,
Oregon 97138
503-738-5561 • Fax 503-738-
9285
Find all the details at the Wildlife Cen-
ter’s website at coastwildlife.org.
Right after that, we’ll be celebrating
more outdoor adventures with Cannon
Beach’s unique 12 Days of Earth Day,
including lectures, plantings, clean-ups
and a parade and street fair. Watch for
details coming soon!
And don’t forget the First Sunday
Cannon Beach Bird Walk. The next
one will be on March 4. Join a small
group at 9 a.m. at the Lagoon Trail on
Second Street. Bring binoculars and
wear appropriate clothing. Everyone is
welcome!
Susan has spent her life enjoying the
great outdoors from the lakes and woods
of northern Minnesota, Mount Adams in
Washington and now the Oregon beach
environs. After spending many pleasur-
able hours driving her avid birder par-
ents around, she has taken up birding as
a passion. Susan resides on Neawanna
Creek in Seaside where her backyard is
a birder’s paradise.
www.cannonbeachgazette.
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LETTERS
On dune grading at Breakers Point
After considering both sides of the dune-grading issue,
as a Breakers Point neighbor since its inception, my
recommendation is for denial or, at most, the minimum.
Taking into account the wisdom of “the greatest happiness
for the greatest number” it becomes obvious that “the
greatest number” is composed of those citizens of the
state of Oregon and tourists from all over the world who
find “the greatest happiness” in the ever-changing dunes
from Breakers Point to Chapman Point. These people
should not be responsible for the “view enhancement” that
owners of Breakers Point condominiums believe is owed
them. Nor should this majority have any qualms about the
possibility that a few Breakers Point owners might find
reductions in the value of their condominiums. Individual
property rights that conflict with the common good often
need to be sacrificed or at the very least compromised.
Rex Amos
Cannon Beach
THE NATIONAL AWARD-WINNING