Kind Words about Reflectory

 

A few days ago I received a wonderful Facebook

message from Tony Wolton regarding Reflectory:

I'm going through the book for a second time, a must have

item not just for lovers of Pepper Adams and his music, but

anyone interested in the Detroit/New York jazz scene 1950's

onwards. Before the book, what little I knew about him came

from LP liner notes and anything I might glean from a magazine

or two. The man was a genius. One reference from the book

and then I'm done: In 1968 (or thereabouts), Miles Davis played

first set at a gig so he could get off early. Don't forget Miles was

getting into strange stuff by then, but held back in the wings to

hear the whole of Adams' set. He dug what Pepper played. How

many others would Miles Davis have hung back for?

 

Here’s a link to the book, where you can read some about it and

buy it: https://www.pepperadams.com/Reflectory/index.html 

 

Adams Biography Now Available

  

Reflectory has been available for a month at this site:

https://www.pepperadams.com/Reflectory/index.html.

I want to thank those of you who were the first to

purchase my 37-year labor of love. I certainly hope

you’re enjoying it: the text, the photographs, and the

incredible music links. Please let me know what you

think of it. Laurent Briffaux in France did (see below),

and Glenn Wilson emailed me to say that he’s digging

the info about Detroit. There’s a lot of it!

I’m just about done correcting those pesky typos that

surfaced in the First Edition. The Revised Version will

soon replace the First Edition, and I’ll be using it for

future sales and reviews, and for what I’ll be reading on

the audiobook version that I expect to tackle this Spring.

I recently hired a PR firm to promote Reflectory. Word of mouth, and Facebook and Twitter posts only go

so far. As a result, I’m expecting a flurry of reviews in the

next few months, which I’ll share with you as they get

published.

I did an hour-long interview with Andrew Hadro at

jazzbarisax.com that should be posted soon. Also, I’ve

organized a panel discussion about Adams with fourteen

musicians from the U.S., Canada, and England that will

take place on Sunday, December 12. You can watch it live

at 2pm Eastern Time and send chat questions, or wait for

it to be posted on YouTube. I’ll post information about it in

early December. 

Here’s Briffaux’s lovely review, one of my first buyers:

Le titre lui-même par sa mise en abime est l'essence du

livre. L'auteur, ami du saxophoniste Pepper Adams à la

fin de sa vie, lui avait promis de compléter et de publier

son histoire. Carner a fait bien mieux: pièce par pièce,

morceaux par morceaux, il lui construit un monument.

Livre-monde, on retrouve au fil des pages les stars et les

passants, les anecdotes et les aventures de toute une

scène. Impossible de ne pas y voir des personnages déjà

rencontrés, et de pas entendre l'écho de mélodies familières.

Chaotique et brillante, c'est la vie de celui qui cherche,

doute et parfois éclaire un instant votre propre vérité

intérieure. Reflectory pose un nouveau standard pour les

livres qui voudront traiter d'un musicien.

 

The title says it all, and works as an infinite mirroring device.

The author, a friend of saxophonist Pepper Adams in the last

years of his life, had promised to complete his story and publish

it. Carner did much better: piece by piece, track by track, he

built him a monument. In this meta-book, we meet throughout

the pages the stars and the passers-by, the anecdotes and the

adventures of a whole scene. It is impossible not to connect with

characters already seen, and not to hear the echo of familiar

melodies. Chaotic and brilliant, this is the life of one who seeks,

doubts and illuminates for a moment your own inner self.

Reflectory sets a new standard for books on a musician's life.

Moreover, it tells the urgency, the beauty and the luxuriance of life.

 

60 Days to Publication

 

This past month has seen steady progress toward the

publication of Reflectory: The Life and Music of Pepper Adams. First, I’ve re-edited

for the last time before its September release Chapters 8-

12. I’ve also submitted final copies of Chapters 2-4 for

eBook formatting. Chapters 1 and 5-7 are still out for

review.

Also, most of the book is eBook ready, and that includes a number of photographs. All that remains is incorporating what my readers suggest, formatting the front- and end-matter, inserting new versions of most chapters in place of what’s there already, getting all the music links formatted, and finishing the Music Directory. Things still look good for its September release.

I recently received this wonderful blurb from John Gennari,

that will be added to the front matter:

“Gary Carner’s deep and painstaking research into the life

and music of Pepper Adams, coupled with his sure feel for

this underappreciated jazzman’s complex personality, has

yielded an absorbing biography that also reveals much

about the jazz life writ large. Carner’s nimble narrative

captures Adams as a man of reserve and sensitivity thrown

into the always bracing, sometimes exasperating tumult of

jazz’s post-bop Detroit-to-New York vector. Reflectory is

jazz history of the first rank.”

Gosh, I sure am gratified by this! If anyone in the world is

an expert on the history and literature of jazz, it’s Gennari.

I’m adding his last sentence to the book’s cover.

Speaking of Gennari, I now use three quotes as chief

epigraphs in the book:

Ya gotta be original, man

 – LESTER YOUNG

How many musicians out there are really different?

 – RAN BLAKE

Because jazz demands that musicians find their own sound

and stamp their performances with a singular individuality,

those who succeed in music tend to be distinctive, singular

individuals

– JOHN GENNARI

July doings

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

We made it to August. How about that? Predictably, the weather in the Southeast has been hot and humid, and COVID is still with us. The recent spike in reported cases has kept me away from the city. In fact, I haven’t heard a live jazz band in at least a year. That’s not a good thing at all.

My July was mostly consumed by getting ready to move west from Georgia to Utah. Packing, donating, discarding, repairing, throwing stuff away, letting go of formerly cherished things: that’s been my gig. Packing has given me a much needed break from the Pepper Adams book project. And distance is a really good thing. Whenever I get back to it after a layoff, I find small details that I didn’t see before; things that need tweaking, areas that need upgraded transitions, or sometimes even sections that need to be moved around.

Just yesterday I heard from Walt Szymanski, the Detroit trumpeter who now lives in Ecuador. He read the first four chapters of the Adams biography, and is planning to review the entire book in Spanish. He told me how he “devoured” the first half in two days, eagerly reading about many of the musicians who he worked with while living in Detroit, such as Charles Boles, J.C. Heard, Sam Sanders, Johnny Allen, Marcus Belgrave, Johnny Allen, Harold McKinney, and Ali Muhammad Jackson. 

Getting his email prompted me to return to Chapter 1. A few weeks ago, I had moved some sections around, thanks to the suggestions of Bob Blumenthal. Sure enough, besides making a few very minor improvements, I’m now also considering upgrading one transition to an entire section I moved from Ch. 4. 

As for Chapters 5-11 that comprise the second half of the book, I’m awaiting feedback regarding Chapter 10 from one reader, then it goes out to another. My longest chapter, 10 covers the rich period 1955–1963. It basically functions as the ending of the biography per se, and it includes my discussion of some of Pepper’s key recordings from that time period, all the way back to his arrival in New York City. 

 

Designing a narrative structure in reverse chronological order for the second half, beginning with his final illness, was challenging because, unlike the first part, I had to interlace so much information about Adams’s recordings and keep everything flowing. The approach I came up with was a kind of terracing, with Ch. 6 fitting in with the overall time frame of 5, and 8 doing the same with 7. Ch. 9, about Pepper's various women, deserved its own chapter.

Taking the book back to 1956 and his arrival in New York was my way of linking Ch. 5–10 to the opening of my conclusion in Ch. 11: "What became of the teenager who was so bedazzled by Charlie Parker? Did he accomplish what he set out to do in 1949?" I wrote my summation many months ago, so I'd know my ultimate destination.

Here’s how the second half of the biography, subtitled “Dominion,” now lays out:

PART ONE: The Life of Pepper Adams

Dominion (1956–1986)

Chapter 5: I Carry Your Heart                                   

Chapter 6: Joy Road

Chapter 7: Conjuration                                    

Chapter 8: Civilization and Its Discontents

Interlude: The Late 1960’s New York Jazz Scene                                                                                                       

Civilization and Its Discontents (Part II)

Chapter 9: Lovers of Their Time Chapter 10: Urban Dreams       Interlude: Bohemian New York in the 

Fifties     

Urban Dreams (Part II) Chapter 11: Ad Astra

I’ll include a finding guide to Dominion’s contents next month. As for the publication of “Ascent,” my title for Chapters 1-4, I’m only awaiting Joshua Breakstone’s comments on Chapters 3 and 4. I’ll make the changes, reread the entire thing, and send it off to Barry Wallenstein for his final reading. After that, I’ll be ready to format it for publication. Be well everybody. I’ll catch up with you in September. Hopefully, my house will be sold by then.

July's Pepper Activities

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.






I'm very proud to report that just last night I put the finishing touches on Part I of my Pepper Adams biography. Called "Ascent," it loosely covers the first half of Pepper's life, from birth until his move to New York City in early 1956. Although this may imply that the book is a chronologically arranged narrative, that's definitely not the case. Instead, my approach is thematic in nature. I zig-zag across his life where appropriate. For example, I open the book with his epiphany in Detroit, when, as a teenage, he heard Charlie Parker at the Mirror Ballroom. Then I trace how Pepper got back to Detroit from Rochester, New York, after which I discuss his time in Detroit until he enlists in the U.S Army. In sum, the first part of the book covers Pepper from age seventeen until twenty or so before I even get to his Army experience. In Chapter Two I discuss his paternal lineage and his time as a child in Rochester. His Army experience opens Chapter Three, Ascent's final section, followed by quite a long discussion of his Detroit experience in the 1950s, his maternal background, and why Detroit was such an extraordinary place for jazz.

One reason it took another month to wrap up Part I is that I was waiting for my last reader to critique my final draft of Chapter Three and the Prologue. On Friday I finished incorporating my reader's various suggestions to both. Yesterday and today I improved the Prologue's content and added a new paragraph, describing how Pepper Adams has become a spiritual calling for me. Finally, I can truly say that it's time to move on to Part II ("Dominion"), after sixteen months of work. That, of course, won't keep me from peeking at the Prologue a few more times to make sure that I'm totally happy with it.

Also, this past month I was able to finish the very tedious job of transforming what was formerly my set of footnotes into a section retitled "Sources." Now my quotes are more properly placed in the back of the book. This is the modern way of listing attributions, so as to not disturb the reading experience. I've found that this approach also prevents me from submerging somewhat arcane information that didn't quite fit into the text somewhere else in the book. Oh, well.

I'm also pleased to tell you that quite a few upgrades were made in July to pepperadams.com. First, an update to my Byrd-Adams Quintet piece was posted. It includes new information on when the two first played together in Detroit. It was with the Charles Johnson band, by the way, and only for a short period of time. See http://www.pepperadams.com/ByrdAdamsHistory.pdf

I've also added part of the analysis section from my Tufts University masters thesis in Articles: http://www.pepperadams.com/Articles/Scan_0012.pdf. You'll see how I attempted to qualify a bunch of Pepper solos. It was my thesis director, T.J. Anderson's, idea to do it in this manner.

The biography/musical study in progress now has its own book icon. You'll see it at at pepperadams.com directly under Pepper Adams' Joy Road. If you click through, you can access music examples that I'm discussing in Part I of the book. Listed already in boldface are Pepper's earliest recorded baritone solos (Hugh Jackson) and his very first recorded clarinet solo (Oliver Shearer) from 1947 when he was sixteen! New material will continue to be added so please check it out!

Three other additions have been made to the site in July. The first Disco Update in over a year has been posted: http://www.pepperadams.com/JoyRoad/DiscoUpdates.pdf

The Dedications page is almost complete: http://www.pepperadams.com/Dedications/index.html

And my extensive history of Detroit, formerly written for the Pepper biography, has been posted:
http://www.pepperadams.com/Detroit.pdf 

Have a great rest of the summer!
GC

Detroit Jazz

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

First, a happy July 4th holiday to all. Over the last few weeks I’ve been busy making significant refinements to Chapter 1 of my Pepper Adams biography. My final reader suggested numerous changes to the chapter. Fortunately, Chapters 2 and 3 remained unscathed!

Mostly, my long and somewhat tangential history of Detroit from 1694 to the mid-1950s, “Detroit Drives the Nation,” has been removed. It’s now posted at pepperadams.com: http://www.pepperadams.com/Detroit.pdf  in the place of “Videos.” That was an internal redundancy on the web site that we retained for a while. All the Pepper Adams videos are now available by clicking the YouTube icon on the top of the page: http://www.pepperadams.com/Compositions/compList/videos.html

I made other, more subtle improvements to my manuscript. I think the first chapter is now much tighter and better focused on Adams. As of now, only my Preface needs some work before I can finally add a few last things from the interviews I conducted with a few Detroiters. Then it’s time to begin the second half of the bio, 1956-1986.

In addition to the new article posted about Detroit, other upgrades have been made to http://www.pepperadams.com/ since May’s blog. The Dedications page (http://www.pepperadams.com/Dedications/index.html) has been further fleshed out with new postings. Added are those dedications to Pepper Adams written by

Bernie Senensky  http://www.pepperadams.com/Dedications/PeppersGone.html,

Glenn Wilson http://www.pepperadams.com/Dedications/AdamsPark.html,

Jeff Holmes http://www.pepperadams.com/Dedications/SaltAndPepper.html,

and Brian Williams http://www.pepperadams.com/Dedications/SongForPepper.html

Thanks to all of them for providing the music samples and lead sheets. All that now remains is posting four remaining pieces: Thad Jones’ dedication, “Two As One,” and those done by Alain Cupper, Osian Roberts and Pete Lukas. If anybody else out there has written a dedication to Pepper Adams, please let me know and we’ll post it.

In a few previous posts I promised to share some of the comments about Pepper that were made by the saxophonist Doc Holladay and the drummer Eddie Locke in interviews I conducted many years ago. Here’s a few gems from Holladay:

Pepper was a very talented cat. He knew he was talented, I think. I always had the feeling that Pepper really knew how talented he was, and it was a frustration for him to realize that people didn’t appreciate him.

I personally feel he was the greatest ‘change player’ in the world, as far as playing changes. I don’t know anybody who could touch him. . . . He could play twenty or thirty choruses without ever repeating himself.

On gigs with Holladay. Pepper liked to play a blues, and cycle through all twelve keys, each chorus in a different key (F to B-flat to E-flat, etc). It was just phenomenal!

Pepper used the Service as a school, in a sense. Pepper would get his horn out and he would spend a lot of time in the barracks. His routine was he got a fakebook. He’d pick a tune, and he would learn that tune to where he really had it by memory, and then he’d start playing the tune. We’re talking about the melody now. He’d play that melody, and he’d start playing it in all different keys. So he had that tune in all kinds of keys and be comfortable with it. Then he’d start playing off the changes of the tune, and he’d start doing that until he’d get the changes down to where he could run the changes on the tune, and then he’d start to run that in all the keys. He would digest a tune, just take it apart, make it his own, and then he would go on to the next tune. All the time he was in the Service, in the band where I observed him, he was constantly doing that. A new tune every day or two. He could play for hours. The rest of the guys would go out to hang out and party, and Pepper would be in there taking a tune apart.

I don’t think I ever heard him run patterns as such.

As for Eddie Locke’s comments, here are some of his observations about Pepper and Detroit in the 1940s and 1950s:

You were always trying to get to the big joints: The Flame, The Frolic, the Chesterfield Lounge. Those were on John R. Chesterfield: Pepper played in there. Roland Hanna used to play in there . . . When you played on John R, that means you were getting established. You were jamming no more.

Sam’s and Joe’s Record Shops on Hastings St. had some recording studios in the back where they cut records.

A real jazz man will play his instrument no matter what. He’s gonna play. He’s not gonna make an excuse for not playing by saying, “Something is wrong. I can’t play.” If you love it so much, it doesn’t make any difference. No dollars, bad musicians, good musicians, mediocre musicians. You’re gonna blow!

Pepper just happened to also be a great player. But he was a real jazz man. That’s something different, even being a great player. . . A real jazz man is rare. That’s a lifestyle. That’s not just going to school, and that’s what Pepper was about. In Detroit, you played in the joints -- slop jobs in those old, funky places. That’s a jazz man. He wasn’t trying to play in Carnegie Hall every night. He was just going to play some music because he loved to play. . . . People wanted to play with him because he was jazz man.

There were so many scenes, different kind of bands, and it all becomes a part of you when you’re around it.