Tuesday, July 7, 2020

After Three Years, It's Done!

















© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.



Sorry for the delay in posting this. I’m very pleased to finally report that I have completed writing the Pepper Adams biography. After a few more rounds of editing of my last three chapters, it’s now in the hands of my readers to make suggestions and corrections.

The first four chapters will make up the first eBook. Once I hear about chapters 3 and 4 from my final two reviewers, I’ll be ready to format it for publication on lulu.com

It’s been a fascinating journey, and I’m so happy it’s in the rear-view mirror. Here’s Adams’s comments about Thelonious Monk from Chapter 10:


Monk was “wildly eccentric,” said Adams. “and so much so, and so unstable, that I think crazy is probably apt, which by no means is to denigrate what he did musically, because he knew what he was doing.”

And his personal eccentricities, I think, sometimes tended to hide the fact that he was not your untaught genius-off-the-streets type. He was a thoroughly schooled, grounded musician, and knew just what he was doing. But what he was doing was a lot different from what other people were doing, but he had sound musical reasons for that. But his behavior patterns were sometimes so wildly eccentric that I think it gave many people the impression that this all carried over into his music. But to me they were two very separate compartments of the person. His music is highly individual, but it’s fine music, and it makes sense in a very individual manner, which I think is its great value in that it is so different. But he himself could be wildly unstable, irrational, very unpredictable to be around. I never saw him violent, at any rate, but I’ve seen him very obstinate!