Reflectory

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.




I'm just back from a vacation in Canada. Sorry for the delay in uploading this post. On my way home I visited with trumpeter Denny Christianson, who was the only musician to ever record Pepper Adams in a big band setting with Adams as the featured soloist. That recording, Suite: Mingus, and its follow-up date, More Pepper (with a few additional cuts from the Montreal session), were released posthumously. Adams, very weak from cancer in February, 1986, made it through the recording but it was a Herculean struggle for him to get through the date. Denny told me that, for the first few takes, the rhythm section was pulling back the time to stay with Pepper because he was back-phrasing. Denny had to instruct them to keep the time in place so Pepper could express himself as he wished.

Christianson has run the esteemed Humber College jazz program in Toronto for eighteen years, building it to its current state as one of the world's finest. At age 75, he has just retired. He intends to begin writing his memoirs once all his things in his office are organized and packed.

It was a joy to reminisce about Pepper with him and his wife, Rose, and to share parts of the first half of my Pepper book with them. Later, saxophonists Pat LaBarbera, Kirk MacDonald, and Shirantha Beddage, all on the Humber faculty, came by for a barbecue. What a great experience! From Denny, Rose and Kirk I was able to record some more valuable interview material that will be helpful in the second half of the biography.

While in Canada, before returning to Toronto, I hung out with my pepperadams.com webmaster. We made considerable progress with the Dedications page, gathering performances. That page, and Big Band Arrangements, are currently being updated. New Chronology files have already been posted at the site. In some cases, these are the first updates in over a year, with much new information, including the newly researched inception of the Thad Jones-Pepper Adams Quintet.

My co-author on the Pepper biography, John Vana, and I have adopted a new working title for the Pepper Adams book. We're running with Reflectory: The Life and Music of Pepper Adams. Do you like it? John felt that the title underscored Pepper's contemplative, intellectual side. I felt that it had an air of poetry to it. The subtitle needs to be there to reflect the bifurcated nature --  Pepper's life and the musical analysis -- of our twin approach. As with my first Adams book, Pepper Adams' Joy Road, we'll use on the cover what I feel is Pepper's most iconic photograph.

I've added a surprise, very special guest to write an Afterword to the book. Still another contributor is in the works. The idea is to have at least one world renowned jazz scholar/musician validate some of John Vana's observations, to add weight and emphasis to them. For one thing, putting Adams in a class with Bird and Trane will surprise some, if not many. I feel it's important that Vana's conclusions not be perceived as the ranting of a biased fan. Having an Afterword will silence the cynics, and startle those who have been asleep about Adams.

To that aim, Vana will be teaching a graduate course at Western Illinois University in the Spring, 2019: "The Big Three: Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Pepper Adams." I expect he'll make all sorts of discoveries that will make its way to our book.

I've been listening recently to my interviews with Tommy and Diana Flanagan. I'm nearly finished with them. The great value of this documentation is that it helps me understand the last few years of Pepper's life, especially how he dealt with his final illness.

I did listen to my interview with Bob Wilber that I conducted in 1988, between sets at the Sticky Wicket Pub in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, where he appeared as a soloist with a rhythm section. Wow, was he tremendous that Sunday afternoon!

Here are some Wilber interview excerpts about Pepper:

"He saw the possibility of taking the big sound from the baritone, from Carney, and applying it to bebop jazz -- which was a difficult thing to do because when you have a really big sound it tends to be sluggish. It tends to slow you down."

"One of the tensions that he achieved in his playing was this feeling of being slightly behind, as though he was falling behind. It added tension to his playing."

"Yeah, legato tongue, where Carney tended to be more legato without any tonguing. He had great harmonic sophistication. He explored all the possibilities of using the diminished scale, and all kinds of things. Very sophisticated harmonically."

"A gentle guy. He had that soft way of speaking."

In the next few weeks I'll begin cataloging part of Adams' collection before I drive up to New Jersey to donate it to the William Paterson University Archive. I'll be including a list of Pepper's 78s and LPs, as well as his personal 8-Track collection, as appendices in the biography. How appropriate to have the Pepper and Thad Jones collections together at the same institution!

Last month I promised to share Eddie Locke interview excerpts. That will have to wait until my next installment. I may also include some of Doc Holladay's interview excerpts next month too.
Happy Summer to all!

What Happened to The Big Band and Tentet CDs?

After last week's stimulating experience interviewing Detroit pianist Charles Boles, this week was pretty sleepy by comparison. I did exchange emails with Chip McNeill at the University of Illinois regarding the long awaited CD of big band performances of Pepper Adams tunes. Unfortunately, the Illinois state budget is still on shaky ground and McNeil's esteemed jazz program has suffered because of it. For the past few years, Illinois has slashed public college educational spending. Limited resources has kept McNeill from having the revenue to, among other things, release the date on Armored Records. He told me that if he has any money left over at the end of this semester, he'll finally be able to release the CD.

This is the recording that features arrangements by the superb British drummer and arranger Tony Faulkner. In order for Faulkner to get paid, travel from England to North America for a month tour of concerts and lectures with me, and pay for the mastering of the original concert done at the University of Illinois, Tony and I oversaw a stressful but ultimately successful 30-day Kickstarter campaign in the summer of 2013. Somehow we exceeded our goal of $7000. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/333143376/the-compositions-of-pepper-adams-big-band-cd-and-t  On behalf of Tony Faulkner, I want to thank all of you for your funding of the project. We remain eternally grateful.

One large contributor was baritone saxophonist Jon Gudmundson, who leads the jazz program at Utah State University. It was Jon's three-part goal to perform some of these charts, feature a guest soloist at the concert, and invite me to speak about Pepper. That dream is finally coming to fruition in a few weeks. His big band is performing these tough Faulkner charts on Wednesday night, April 5, in Logan, Utah, with baritone saxophonist Jason Marshall as soloist. I'll be doing some kind of pre-concert talk, plus lecturing at a jazz class the day before. While in Utah, I'm also doing lectures at Westminster College, Salt Lake Community College, and possibly a few other schools.

The big band recording that Tony and I worked on was to be Volume 6 of my multi-volume CD series of Pepper's music. My record label, Motema, cut me loose after Volume 5 due to lackluster sales. At that point, not having a label, Chip and Glenn Wilson took back the project, deciding to search for a label or self-produce it through the university. After announcing its release on Armored http://www.armoredrecords.com, I thought the issue was concluded. Two winters ago the date was scheduled for release. Then I heard something about the owner's wife having a baby. Now it's Illinois' budget problem. We're nearly four years after the date has been recorded. Because of it being in limbo for far longer than any of us thought possible, the patience of some of my donors has no doubt been tried. Chip McNeill does not want me to release an edited version on CD Baby that we produced for Motema. In respect to his wishes, I continue to wait. Almost all of the donors will be receiving a surprise CD in the mail. I wish I knew when!

In the mail this week arrived a sampler CD, All Blues, from Denny Christianson, director of Humber College's great jazz program: http://humbermusic.ca/ Sometime after Tony Faulkner and I lectured at Humber in Toronto in the Fall of 2013, Christianson directed his Humber Studio Jazz Ensemble to record a collection of tunes, one of which was Pepper Adams' composition Doctor Deep. Finally, there's a well-produced studio version of one of Tony charts! Despite so many great concerts of his Adams charts done in 2012 and 2013, and even with the prospect of doing two recordings of Faulkner's arrangements, this Humber recording is the first and only commercial release of anything he wrote. The main reason why Tony worked so hard was to create a book of material that could be performed by big band and tentet, some of which would be recorded. The Illinois date has languished, obviously, and a live tentet recording led by drummer Tim Horner didn't turn out as expected and won't be released.

Speaking of drummers, I just received this email out of the blue from drummer Tony Inzalaco. It was a response to an email I sent to him last November:

Hi Gary;  I am replying to your email concerning working with Pepper Adams, etc. Sorry it has taken me so long to respond but I rarely check the email that you contacted me on. I would be happy to speak with you about Pepper but not by email. So if you are interested I would prefer speaking via telephone. You can either send me your number or request my number. Park was one of the great gentlemen of Jazz and his body of work is a testament of his artistic level of excellence.   

Sincerely,  

Tony Inzalaco

Here's my original email:

Hi Tony: In my interview with Pepper Adams, he mentioned playing with you in Atlantic City. He said it was a sextet led by Maynard Ferguson. I've been able to approximate the dates as cApr 20-24, 1965 and cApr 27-May 2, 1965. Might you remember who else was in that band, the venue, or anything else about it? Did you work with Pepper on any other occasions?

I'm scheduled to interview Tony this afternoon

                      (Tony Inzalaco)

In a few weeks, pepperadams.com's webmaster, Dan Olson, and I will be adding audio content of some of these big band performances of Faulkner's charts from 2013, including some great things on YouTube that haven't been seen because they're not properly indexed. By then, I should know if I'm going abroad in late September to give a presentation about Pepper Adams and Detroit in Darmstadt, Germany. My research over the last few months has been working toward having something of substance to present in Germany. If it comes to pass, I've been invited to Prague to stay with tenor saxophonist Osian Roberts. He'll no doubt do a gig of Pepper tunes when I'm there, hopefully with a big band, since he too arranged a few big band charts of Pepper's music. I'm hoping to lecture about Pepper at a few schools, including possibly the Prague Conservatory, if all works out.              

                            (Tony Faulkner)

Pepper and Fish

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

My interview last Sunday with Delaware tenor saxophonist Dave Schiff was absolutely groundbreaking! Much of it will be included in my forthcoming Pepper Adams biography because Schiff goes into great detail about Pepper's approach to playing. Apart from Curtis Fuller and others that Pepper may have mentored in Detroit, it turns out that Schiff was very likely Pepper's only student after Pepper moved to New York at age 29. How Schiff knows so much about Pepper is that his memory is razor-sharp about many of the important things that Pepper taught him when he was an aspiring teenage saxophonist.

Schiff was fifteen when Pepper, Thad Jones, Roland Hanna, Tom McIntosh and a few other top New York-based jazz musicians came to Wilmington, Delaware, beginning in 1968, to do five-day workshops with young students from the area. Pepper was an instructor at the Wilmington Music School each June from 1968 to 1970, then again one last time in 1974. At the School, directed by Schiff's father, Hal Schiff, Pepper had a chance to work with small ensembles and individually with students. Some were very promising inner-city students who couldn't afford tuition. For them, Schiff's father arranged scholarship money, underwritten by the Dupont and Hercules corporations. Dave Schiff was one of the lucky students who studied individually with Pepper.

One year, in the late '60s, after Pepper finished teaching at the Wilmington Music School, he invited Dave Schiff (whom he regarded as a very promising instrumentalist) to New York to study with him for a day. By then, according to Schiff, he had become quite close with Pepper. Schiff and his dad (also a tenor player) took the train early on a Monday morning from Wilmington and were greeted by Pepper at either Penn or Grand Central Station. Pepper assured Hal that he would look after him and all would be fine. Hal went home on the train. Pepper and Dave went back to Pepper's one-bedroom apartment at 84 Jane Street, and they studied together for much of the day. 

That night Pepper brought Dave with him to the Village Vanguard, ostensibly to hear the band. Pepper told Schiff to bring his horn. For the last tune of the last set Pepper asked Schiff to sit in on Back Bone. Schiff was petrified, but Pepper assured him it would be OK. Schiff would only play two choruses after Pepper's solo, he'd first sit next to Pepper on the bandstand and play the chart with him, and he'd do fine. Schiff already knew Thad from his Wilmington experience, but that hardly calmed his nerves. Schiff told me, "I was so scared I thought I was going to vomit." Before they played the tune, Pepper introduced Schiff to Jerry Dodgion, who, as always, was very warm and welcoming. "Very nice meeting you," said Dodgion to Schiff. "I'm looking forward to hearing you play." As it turned out, Schiff got through the experience. Another challenge for the young player was overcome and Pepper's lesson was learned. That is, always play when you're invited.

Schiff, nicknamed "Fish" by Pepper, thought he might move to New York and become a professional musician. He certainly had an important ally in Pepper, he thought, and he would seek out other players his own age and develop that way. But the Vietnam War changed his plans. His father, worried that his son would be drafted and would have to fight overseas, got his son enlisted in the Navy Band in 1972. 

Not entirely unlike Pepper's Korean War experience, I still don't know if Schiff had a tour of duty or, instead, if he stayed mostly at the base at Annapolis, Maryland. Schiff did stay with the Navy's Commodores band for about 20 years and later was also a member of Bill Potts' Big Band that had a long residency two weeks a month at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. Interestingly, Schiff was in Potts' band on 11 October 1979, the night Pepper came in, as a guest soloist, at Frankie Condon's Supper Club in Rockville Maryland. Schiff made corrections to that entry in Pepper Adams' Joy Road (pages 384-85). The changes will be posted in the next few months at "Discographical Updates" at pepperadams.com.

Obviously, I look forward to transcribing the Schiff interview and following up. Schiff was the first person to describe the inside of Pepper's apartment on Jane Street. Most importantly, of course, was Schiff's extremely important observations about Pepper's approach to playing. Although I've done more than 100 interviews, no one has presented these kinds of insights. 

Why "Fish?" Pepper was a voracious crossword puzzle enthusiast. When Pepper was dying at home, he passed the time doing New York Times crossword puzzles and reading the Flashman Papers, a series of twelve novels written by George MacDonald Fraser. Moreover, as Curtis Fuller put it about Pepper's playing, "Pepper was a speller." My theory is that Pepper heard "Schiff" and amused himself by reversing Schiff's surname as a kind of pseudo- reverse homonym.

So far, I only know of two other summer music camps for whom Pepper taught. One was the National Band Camps, based at Millikin University in Decatur IL and the University of Connecticut in Stoors CT. As such, he was in the forefront of jazz education in the U.S. He enjoyed working with young players, and I understand the compensation for clinicians was quite good. Additionally, Adams enjoyed doing college workshops, where the pay was even better. Two such programs he did late in life were at Eastman in March, 1978 and the University of North Texas in November, 1982. At one National Band Camps residency, one of his young students was Boston-based guitarist Jon Wheatley. In the Eastman jazz program was pianist Dave Loeb (see Joy Road, page 324 and "Discographical Updates.") At UNT was tenor saxophonist Chip McNeill.

About Pepper's disinterest in having private students, I think Pepper really prized his time alone, reading fiction, listening to Ellington and classical music, and nurturing his other hobbies, such as reading about fine art or watching sports on televsion, particularly football and hockey. For the most part, Pepper was busy enough to support himself by playing, and his mother's inheritance allowed him a measure of comfort. He bought his house in Canarsie with cash from her estate, acquired some furniture (his dad's kitchen table, mom's spinet, etc), and he freed up the rent money that he was paying for his flat in Greenwich Village. 

The only other time I know of that Pepper had a private student was when he was already quite ill with cancer. Montreal-based baritone saxophonist Charles Papasoff got a grant from the Province of Quebec to study with Pepper. Unlike with Schiff, the situation was quite different. Pepper needed the subsidy because his medical benefits were dwindling and, with his cancer treatments, he wasn't able to work as much as he needed to support himself. Although I interviewed Papasoff years ago, I don't recall the nature of their interaction. That's just one of many interviews I need to review. I do know they became friends. I can't imagine Papasoff not asking Pepper a million questions about technique and his life in jazz but my recollection is that he and Pepper mostly hung out, and Pepper might not have even pulled out his instrument. Papasoff did help Pepper on his last visit to Montreal--a very poignant experience for all. Check out pages 505-507 of Joy Road regarding Adams' very last performance, with Papasoff and Denny Christianson's commentary.

                                            (Dave Schiff)