Biography Update

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

READ BELOW!

It’s been a busy month. Updating the entire Pepper Adams Interviews section of

pepperadams.com took a ton of time, mostly because I needed to listen to all of

them again in their entirety. I wanted to be sure that I didn’t overlook any important

facts that Pepper mentioned which might be a valuable addition to my Adams

biography. Also, it was necessary to add some mouse-over text for the user and fix

some previous errors. As of now, all fourteen interviews have been posted. All that

remains is seeing if we can improve the digital skips in the John Reid interview.

For several weeks, on and off, I’ve continued to wrestle with the opening section of

Chapter One of the Pepper bio. I just wasn’t entirely happy with it. I think now I’ve got it

where I want it.

I’m happy too with the rest of Chapter 1, and 4, and I’ve been editing Chapters 2 and 3.

Moreover, I’ve rewritten the Prologue and that’s done.

I did finish going through a stack of notes and quotations from various interviews that I

did with Johnny Griffin, Bill Watrous, Bill Perkins and others. Now that the pile of info is

sorted out, I’ve turned to my 46 microcassettes (as much as 92 hours of interview) that I

need to hear before I feel comfortable that I’ve gotten everything that I need from them.

Once finished, probably by early September, I can edit Chapter 5 and move on to Chapter

6, my final chapter.

Regarding Chapter 6, I already have 60 pages of notes and an outline. I’m hoping I can

breeze through it, then make some valuable concluding comments.

As for the publishing the first half of the bio soon, I think that this will be pushed ahead to

early next year. I just have too much work to do before I get to that point. Before it’s done,

I’ll be establishing a mailing list, very long overdue, at pepperdams.com

Below are some recent interview excerpts I hope you enjoy that I’ve added to my notes:

Pepper Adams to Ben Sidran:

“If you play everything legato, and don’t use the tongue -- and don’t outline where the
note is going to hit -- everything tends to run together because it is lower pitched. It has
no rhythmic impact, or impulse, behind it. I’ve tried to use a legato tongue so that there
is differentiation between the notes. I’ve tried to do a lot with articulation because that
has a lot to do with what the time feeling is going to be. And, if you fail to articulate on
baritone, or particularly on lower pitched instrument, it is going to be one constant rumble
after a while.”

Bill Watrous to Gary Carner:

“Every time he played, it was an adventure,” said Bill Watrous. “His ideas, and his
conception of the stuff that he was trying to play, was totally original. I would say, more
so than anybody else [who] ever played that instrument.”

“Pepper had an angularity about his playing, like a jagged sort of approach, that was very
much like the way Sonny Rollins approaches the instrument. Sonny goes at the instrument
from all angles -- from the left, from the right, and under, and goes that way. Pepper,
basically, did the same thing. Pepper had incredible technique. Pepper didn’t just run the
changes. Pepper played all over the changes. I think they sort of approached their music
from a similar direction.”

“The sense of humor was amazing! Pepper would play: I found myself laughing to myself a
lot when Pepper would play some of the things he would play.”

Bill Perkins to Gary Carner:

“He’s one of the true giants of jazz. He stood out in that rare group of jazz soloists, the great giants
of all time, people like Bird and Prez. And John Coltrane has become that. I think that Pepper was
that on his instrument. And Diz. They’re in an area where very few have done the creative work that
they’ve done.”

Johnny Griffin to Gary Carner:

“He was never a pushy person. Maybe that’s what kept him from being more of a giant, as
far as the public is concerned, because he was never aggressive.”

Ron Kolber to Gary Carner:

“He would send me a tune, an old tune,” said Ron Kolber. “Every time we’d see each other, he’d
say, ‘You know this one?’ We used to try to stump each other with old tunes. One his favorite tunes
was a tune by the name of ‘Says My Heart.’ It’s an old tune. Always digging for old tunes; that was a
little hobby with him. He said that some of the early tunes were really great. . . . He had great interest
in the old-timers. Any of the old-timers. He would listen to all of the old records. He said, ‘That’s where
we’re from.’ He said, ‘If we listen to that, we’re gonna get to where we are, and maybe beyond, but
you can’t start in the middle and go. You gotta go all the way back.’”

Finally, here’s three clips of tunes that Anders Svanoe performed at his recent concert dedicated to
Pepper, and a video of Pepper conducting an after-concert interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybB-Rpnzx8A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRtmIVKJ9EI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXdFEEnkq5M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ovuEbDv8YQ

Strange Bedfellows: Pepper Adams and Nick Brignola

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

Pepper Adams performed with Nick Brignola only a handful of times during his career. Other than a 1982 festival concert in Holland, all of the known gigs were produced by Fred Norsworthy. Norsworthy was a huge Adams fan who self-produced Adams' Encounter date that was eventually sold to Prestige. Norsworthy was also responsible for doing A&R work on the Baritone Madness recording on Beehive. Pepper didn't care for Brignola's playing and would've only taken the gigs here and there because of need. He was also hired on Baritone Madness as a sideman and was furious with the way he was manipulated on the date to appear as a co-leader. I doubt he was pleased with how his sound was re-engineered to make Brignola seem the more prominent sounding player.

I interviewed Norsworthy, Adams and Brignola regarding their work together. Much can be learned from their comments in Pepper Adams' Joy Road (pages 340-44 and elsewhere). Although Adams and Brignola were contemporaries, how do they differ? First, other than occasional doubling on clarinet only in a big band setting, Pepper exclusively played baritone sax and would only solo on baritone. Brignola, for his part, was a multi-instrumentalist who favored baritone more and more later in his career because he finally got an offer to record as a leader on baritone. In a JazzTimes article (August 1989, p. 14) Brignola told Jesse Nash, "I play all the saxophones. The soprano, alto and tenor, as well as bass sax, the clarinets and flutes."

Brignola for many years--until Pepper passed away and Brignola slid into his place--taught saxophone whereas Pepper never had students. Phil Woods told me that he wrote the charts for his octet with Pepper in mind and with the expectation that he'd be in the group. Pepper passed away before the group recorded and Brignola took Pepper's place. 

Both Pepper and Brignola had great technical facility and good time but the differences are dramatic. Pepper was a stylist, with an immediately identifiable style. He had a very sophisticated harmonic sensibility, plus an encyclopedic mind that could cite all sorts of arcane musical paraphrases. His time feel had a plasticity to it: he could play way behind the beat or on top of the beat when double-timing. According to Kenny Berger, however, Brignola was a "lick player." That means he didn't have his own style and his approach was an amalgam of licks from his contemporaries. Pepper prized individuality above all else and would've been completely turned off by this kind of superficiality substituting for style. 

Brignola didn't have the flexibility in time feel either. According to my co-author John Vana, "Brignola has the bop thing down on Baritone Madness but it's as though he's trying to upstage Pepper. On the surface he succeeds. Pepper is so much more creative in his lines, always looking for something new and usually finding it. While the bop/on-top-of-the-beat approach certainly works, Brignola's baritone comes across as a big alto. On Donna Lee, Pepper's time is much more flexible and he freely quotes to add a conversational quality to an up-tempo workout. Brignola's turn sounds pre-planned and less of an artistic statement."

For me, when I hear Brignola, his playing sparkles for a few minutes but then gets extremely tiresome. That's because there's no variety of time, no paraphrasing or humor, little in the way of harmonic depth and it's all in-your-face machismo. He's not telling a story and it's technique for technique's sake. I don't care for Brignola's altissimo playing. More of the same. It strikes me as a gratuitous gimmick. Pepper only rarely jumped into that range and only for dramatic effect.

Kenny Berger also said that Brignola wasn't a good reader. That's another reason why Brignola didn't work that widely. Pepper was a great reader and played with everyone imaginable.

Regarding their only known non-Norsworthy twin baritone gig, Bert Vuijsje attended the De Meervaart concert in 1982 with Hank Jones: "I vividly remember the sadness and, to a certain extent, indignation I felt. Pepper Adams did not make a healthy impression, to say the least. His playing lacked its usual strength and already rumors were going around that he had a serious illness. Nick Brignola reacted in a rather tasteless manner by using his ballad feature, Sophisticated Lady, as a kind of show-off, demonstrating his - momentaneous - superiority by (unusually in this song, I thought) going into double-time after a while and then playing chorus after chorus after chorus as a real tour de force. My idea at the time was that here we saw the final moments of a history of rivalry (at least from Nick Brignola's side)." Here's another case of flamboyance masquerading as artistry. I suspect that Pepper probably knew he was being roped into yet another dumb baritone sax combat situation and demurred. It was also a hit-and-run for Pepper. That is, he flew in from New York for the gig and then went back home. He might've been jet-lagged. More than anything, the Baritone Madness recording left a very bad taste in his mouth and he was probably very uninspired and did this gig solely for the money. On the recording, he couldn't stand the way Beehive's owner took advantage of him and he hated Roy Haynes and Derrick Smith's playing. Years later he cited Roy Haynes as an example of a drummer who doesn't listen.

I do agree with Brignola that Baritone Madness helped Pepper's career. That's something that Brignola pointed out in our interview. The date did bring attention to Pepper as a soloist just a half a year after Pepper went out on his own as a single.

About two years ago I exchanged emails with recording engineer Jim Merod. He worked with Brignola and knew him very well. Jim said that Nick was very much aware of Pepper's place as the superior player and the greatest on his instrument. Nick himself told me years before, in our interview, how he respected that Pepper "played with all the cats." He was referring to all the greatest musicians: Monk, Mingus, Elvin, Miles, Trane, Diz, Thad, Mel, Lee Morgan--I could go on forever. I sensed that Brignola knew exactly what that meant in relation to him not having that kind of access.

Two as One: New Prologue to Pepper Adams Biography

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

OK, everybody. I've rewritten and reformulated the Prologue since last week, pulling together two pieces about Pepper. The first is Pepper in crisis and its aftermath. The second is how I met Pepper and what it was like for me. I encourage you to please let me know if you think this is a good opening to the book. I'll take your suggestions to heart, thanks.

Prologue

In the Summer of 1977 Pepper Adams was at a crossroads. For twelve years he had anchored the reed section of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, one of jazz’s greatest big bands, but at age 46 desperately needed to reinvent himself. Adams never wanted to be in the group in the first place. After too many years of accepting section work with big bands, he was eager to break free and work exclusively with small ensembles so he could stretch as a soloist. But Thad Jones—one of his dearest friends, whom he admired more than anyone—needed him in his newly formed orchestra, leaned on him, reminded him of all the things his mother did for him back in Pontiac, Michigan in the old days and convinced him to stay. That was in 1966. Now, after hundreds of Monday nights at the Village Vanguard and countless tours of the U.S., Europe and Japan, Adams was more restive than ever. 

Pepper had voiced his frustration at least a year prior to the ’77 summer tour. He told Thad and Mel that he was unhappy with his lack of solos, citing the baseball expression, “Play me or trade me!” as some indication of his discontentment. Pepper’s clever use of the phrase, so characteristic of his understated sense of humor, has since become part of the band’s mythology. When it was uttered, they laughed and ignored it. This time around Adams wasn’t joking.

Pepper’s situation came to a head in Stockholm at the midpoint of the band’s two-month European tour. Before their August 1 evening performance at Tivoli Gardens, Adams met privately with  Jones and Lewis. He told them that he wanted a pay raise and star billing as a featured soloist. Adams, though, was unaware that it was band policy to never give inordinate solo space, nor pay any musician, more than anyone else. Even if he had known, Pepper still would’ve felt entitled to it because of his tenure and longstanding friendship with both of them. Nevertheless, much to his Pepper’s surprise, Thad and Mel turned down his request, steadfastly adhering to band protocol. An aggrieved Pepper Adams, left with no alternative, said he’d be leaving the band at the end of the month when the tour concluded. The news of Pepper’s imminent departure saddened everyone in the band, but none more than Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. That night at Tivoli, Adams again had no solos to play. Adams had sublimated his feelings by getting so drunk before the gig that he could barely comport himself onstage.

Adams’ close friend Ron Ley traveled with the orchestra part of the way through Scandinavia that summer and witnessed Pepper’s sad turn of events. A day or so after Adams submitted his resignation, Ley and Thad Jones had a moment alone. Jones reminded Ley that Pepper was jazz’s greatest living baritone saxophonist. Later on, said Ley, “Mel shared Thad’s opinion of Pepper’s playing and added that his opinion was shared by all fellow musicians of the period. It may have been that Thad and Mel made a point of telling me this because they knew that Pepper and I were close, and wanted to express their feelings so that I wouldn’t be left with an impression that they were indifferent to Pepper’s feelings of disappointment.”

After the tour concluded, Adams returned to New York and began forging his identity as an itinerant soloist. Although it was a courageous decision for Adams to go out on his own after twelve years with the band, it was extraordinarily propitious both for him and jazz history. Adams already possessed an international reputation based on more than twenty years of commercial recordings with many of the greatest musicians, including Phil Woods, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Elvin Jones, Stan Kenton, Chet Baker, Duke Pearson, Kenny Clarke, Donald Byrd, Jimmy Heath, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Benny Goodman, Andre Previn, Paul Chambers, Chick Corea, David Amram, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and so many others. In no time he found himself in demand throughout Europe and North America. Then, in 1978 and 1980 Adams recorded two of his greatest albums, Reflectory and The Master, featuring his original compositions. Both were nominated for Grammy Awards as the best instrumental albums of the year by a jazz soloist. Building a book of originals he could perform had finally pushed him to put his mind to composition. Between 1977 and 1983 Adams wrote nearly half his oeuvre of 42 tunes. 

At last, success was coming his way from all directions. His 1979 project with singer Helen Merrill, Chasin’ the Bird/Gershwin, was nominated for a Grammy Award (his third in three years) as the best jazz recording of the year by a vocalist. He received yet another Grammy nomination for his 1983 album Live at Fat Tuesday’s and, clad in a tuxedo, Adams appeared on the 1982 nationally broadcast Grammy Awards telecast, performing (appropriately enough) the jazz standard “My Shining Hour.” Adams was working steadily, winning all the readers and critics polls as the world’s best baritone saxophonist and had the ongoing support of a record company. A younger generation of musicians was seeking him out for their gigs and, due to numerous radio and television appearances, the public was becoming familiar with this soft-spoken gentle man who let his big horn and bigger sound speak for him.

Then, like a sand castle at high tide, it all washed away. With so much forward momentum propelling him, in December, 1983 Adams had a bizarre car accident that forced him to cancel seven months of work, including a week at Lush Life, his first high-profile New York City club date in years. His marriage, already on shaky ground, ended during his convalescence, then lung cancer was discovered half a year later, leaving him with only eighteen months to live. 

Adams’ life can be measured by a long, slowly ascending arc of success that increased logarithmically once he left the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. Without a doubt, his first six years as a traveling soloist were triumphant—a time when he burnished his legacy as a virtuoso performer and composer—making his dramatic three-year fall that much more lamentable. Nevertheless, Adams had a rich, influential 40-year musical career. Consider for a moment the most notable jazz musicians of Adams’ post-Charlie Parker generation. How many bonafide stylists are there among them who are instantaneously identifiable on their instrument and have had a profound effect on the art form? John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Wes Montgomery spring to mind. Clifford Brown? Cannonball Adderley and Phineas Newborn perhaps? Equally noteworthy in his own way is Pepper Adams, the father of modern baritone sax playing. Just like Wes, Trane and the others on their instruments, Pepper’s unique sound and innovative melodic and harmonic concept, just as surely as his dazzling technical mastery, have shaped all baritone saxophonists to follow. This book is an attempt to contextualize Pepper Adams’ accomplishments and reveal the man who revolutionized the baritone saxophone and forever changed music.

*

On September 28, 1986, our first wedding anniversary, my wife and I attended Pepper Adams’ memorial service at St. Peter’s Church. Adams had waged a courageous battle against an aggressive form of lung cancer that was first diagnosed in early March, 1985 while touring in northern Sweden. St. Peter’s, with its modern ash-paneled interior and large multi-tiered sanctuary, is tucked under the enormous 915-foot-tall Citicorp Center at East 54th Street and Lexington Avenue. On that somber but bright Sunday afternoon, St. Peter’s chapel was packed with musicians, friends and admirers. Reverend John Garcia Gensel presided over the service and many jazz greats—Tommy Flanagan, Elvin Jones, Frank Foster, George Mraz, Roland Hanna, Barry Harris, Louis Hayes, Sheila Jordan, Gerry Mulligan and others—performed and paid their final respects. 

For over a year Adams’ plight had galvanized the jazz community, who heard varying stories about his wife leaving him, his declining health and his dire financial situation. Between September, 1985 and March, 1986 two benefits were organized to raise funds for Pepper’s medical care. One at the 880 Club in Hartford, Connecticut was organized by alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and Adams was able to attend. The other took place at the Universal Jazz Coalition on Lafayette Street in New York and featured performances by Milt Jackson, Louis Hayes, Frank Foster, Dizzy Gillespie, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, Jerry Dodgion and the entire Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Pepper, gaunt and bald from chemotherapy treatments, was out of town for that one, working a weekend gig in Memphis. He sent a letter of gratitude that was read to the audience by singer Lodi Carr.

At Pepper’s memorial service it seemed ironic that this brilliant musician’s musician, so admired by his peers, was receiving such a fond farewell. He had fans, I was sure, but you’d never know it by the indifference he received from the jazz press, the few gigs he did in New York or the small audiences I was fortunate to be a part of near the end of his life. While his predicament likely drew more attention to him than previously, I had the impression that an accreted, long overdue realization of Adams’ musical accomplishments had finally coalesced in the public’s mind. How strange it was that, at his death, it felt like his ascendant hour.

  Pepper Adams was a friend of mine, but, sadly, I knew him only during the last two tumultuous years of his life. During that time, only partly recovered from a horrible leg accident that had kept him immobilized 22 hours a day for six months, Adams was separated from his wife and had been diagnosed with the cancer that would in short order kill him. Although it was an utterly miserable time for him, it was a fascinating and complex ride for me. I was a 28-year-old grad student; a passionate jazz fan and record collector who was trying to interest a jazz musician just enough to work with me on their memoir. As fate would have it, because of his leg injury Pepper had some time on his hands. He was so gracious, so prepared, so articulate and engaging. I felt honored to work with him. 

Then, seven months later his cancer was diagnosed. I visited him at St. Luke’s Hospital when he started his medical treatments. I saw him perform whenever he had a gig around New York. On one occasion, between sets at the Blue Note, I saw him bark at a pianist whom he misperceived was harassing him for a gig. Another time, in New Jersey, I heard the pain pour out of him during a magnificent ballad performance that brought me to tears. I spent time with Pepper at his home in Canarsie, eating pizza, watching football games and dubbing copies of his tapes. Although I was trying to gather as much information as I could in the little time that was left, I always had to reign in my curiosity and not push too hard. Things had changed drastically since the summer and I had to make the shift with him. Mostly, I had to respect that he was fighting for his life and that the cancer treatments made him feel awful. It was simply inappropriate to think that every time we got together Pepper would feel like analyzing aspects of his life. Instead, I did what any friend would do. I tried to help out whenever possible.

In January, 1986, Pepper worked a four-night stint in bitterly cold Minneapolis. I urged a friend of mine to attend as some show of support. During intermission Dan Olson said hello for me, bought Pepper a beer and the two had a chance to talk at the bar. Afterwards, Dan told me that my gesture meant a lot to Pepper, that he was obviously quite fond of me. That’s when I started to learn how much Pepper valued our work together. My final experience with Pepper was equally poignant. A month before his death, bedridden at home and under the care of a hospice nurse, I called to see if there was anything I could do. His nurse asked me to hold. I waited anxiously for at least five minutes while Pepper somehow found the energy to drag himself to the telephone. In a sentence or two he acknowledged that time was short, thanked me for calling, said a final goodbye and hung up the phone. That would’ve been in August, 1986, right around the time that Dizzy Gillespie called him to say that Thad Jones had died in Copenhagen.

About a year later, once I began interviewing Adams’ colleagues, I spent a very memorable afternoon in Cambridge, Massachusetts with Tommy Flanagan. I was meeting him for the first time and I was completely starstruck. Flanagan was one of the last people to see Pepper alive. Flanagan wanted me to know that transcripts of my interviews were stacked high on Pepper’s nightstand just before he died. At one point, while sitting next to Pepper on the edge of his bed, Flanagan explained, Pepper awoke and tried feebly to push my manuscript towards him. As you can imagine, I was completely stunned by Flanagan’s story and it had a profound effect on me once I comprehended its full implications. At first I was very touched that my work possibly gave Pepper some small measure of comfort at the end of his life. Then I began to take my role a lot more seriously, knowing how important it was to Pepper for his work to carry on after him. Of course my resolve to do this book and all the other work that’s preceded it was strengthened. But, truth be told, I’ve wanted to tell Pepper’s story since June 28, 1984, the memorable day I conducted the first of several lengthy interviews with him. His recollections of his childhood and early career (see pepperadams.com) were stunning in their depth and historical sweep. I knew right away that I had something very special. 

Flanagan’s interview was one of more than 100 I conducted, mostly in the late 1980s before my daughter was born. For them, Pepper was a complex figure: a hero, an intellectual, a composer, a model of grace, a virtuoso musician and stylist, yet someone also very hard to calibrate. Their remembrances revealed a brilliant artist full of interesting ambiguities and contradictions: an unworldly looking sophisticate, a engaging raconteur in public who was emotionally guarded in private, a full-throated exuberant saxophonist who was mild-mannered and soft-spoken. What a fascinating subject! After so many years researching his life and living with his music, in 2012 I produced a five-volume box set of Adams’ complete compositions that was co-branded with my book Pepper Adams’ Joy Road: An Annotated Discography. Now, with this companion work, I at long last fulfill my promise to him and myself. 

I’m especially pleased that John Vana agreed to co-author the book. John’s an alto player on the faculty at Western Illinois University. We first met when he invited me to speak at WIU in late 2013. John’s an ardent Pepper Adams fan. Soon after my visit he agreed to write a major piece on Pepper’s early style (to 1960) for a possible Adams anthology. Not long after that, John started asking me to send him, bit by bit, every Pepper Adams LP, cassette and videotape in my collection. Clearly, listening only to Adams’ early work wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to consider Pepper’s entire oeuvre. Eventually, it occurred to me that John’s piece would likely cover much of the same terrain I’d be exploring in the second half of this book. Considering the demands of my day job, wouldn’t it be better for me to write the biography and have John (with my input, additions and editorial oversight) write the second section? I got John on the phone and he thought it was a really good idea. The anthology might not even happen, I pointed out, so what better place for his study? For those either already hip to Adams’ life and recordings or encountering him for the first time, it’s our sincere hope that we convey his extraordinary contribution to the history of Twentieth Century music and inspire readers everywhere to listen anew to his glorious work.

Prologue to Pepper Adams Biography

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

Prologue: I Carry Your Heart

On September 28, 1986 I drove three hours from Boston to New York to attend Pepper Adams’ memorial service at St. Peter’s Church. Adams had waged a courageous battle against an aggressive form of lung cancer that was first diagnosed in early March, 1985 while touring in northern Sweden. St. Peter’s, with its modern ash-paneled interior and large multi-tiered sanctuary, is tucked under the enormous 915-foot-tall Citicorp Center at East 54th Street and Lexington Avenue. On that somber but bright Sunday afternoon, St. Peter’s chapel was packed with musicians, friends and admirers. Reverend John Garcia Gensel presided over the service and many jazz greats—Tommy Flanagan, Elvin Jones, Frank Foster, George Mraz, Roland Hanna, Barry Harris, Louis Hayes, Sheila Jordan, Gerry Mulligan and others—performed and paid their final respects. 

For over a year Adams’ plight had galvanized the jazz community, who heard varying stories about his wife leaving him, his declining health and his dire financial situation. Between September, 1985 and March, 1986 two benefits had been organized to raise funds for Pepper’s medical care. One at the 880 Club in Hartford, Connecticut was organized by alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and Adams was able to attend. The other took place at the Universal Jazz Coalition on Lafayette Street in New York and featured performances by Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, Tommy Flanagan, Louis Hayes, Frank Foster, Kenny Burrell, Jerry Dodgion and the entire Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Pepper, gaunt and bald from chemotherapy treatments, was out of town for that one, working a weekend gig in Memphis. He sent a letter of gratitude that was read to the audience by singer Lodi Carr.

At Pepper’s memorial service it seemed ironic that this brilliant musician’s musician, so admired by his peers, was receiving such a fond farewell. He had fans, I was sure, but you’d never know it by the indifference he received from the jazz press, the few gigs he did in New York or the small audiences I was fortunate to be a part of near the end of his life. While his predicament likely drew more attention to him than previously, I had the impression that an accreted, long overdue realization of Adams’ musical accomplishments had finally coalesced in the public’s mind. How strange it was that, at his death, it felt like his ascendant hour.

  Pepper Adams was a friend of mine, but, sadly, I knew him only during the last two tumultuous years of his life. During that time, only partly recovered from a horrible leg accident that had kept him bed-ridden for six months, Adams was separated from his wife and had been diagnosed with the cancer that would, in short order, kill him. 

I’ve been wanting to tell Pepper’s story since June 28, 1984, the memorable day I conducted the first of several lengthy interviews with him. I promised Pepper that I would complete his biography and a 350-page transcript of my interviews was stacked high on his nightstand the morning he died. After his death, I interviewed many of his peers. For them, Pepper Adams was a complex figure: a hero, a model of grace, a virtuoso musician and stylist, a composer, an intellectual. Adams was also an unworldly looking sophisticate; a public person yet emotionally guarded; a full-throated, exuberant saxophonist who was mild-mannered and soft-spoken. In short, a brilliant artist full of interesting ambiguities and contradictions.

After so many years of living with his music and researching his life, in 2012 I produced a five-volume CD box set of Adams compositions that was co-branded and released with my book Pepper Adams’ Joy Road: An Annotated Discography. Now, with this companion work, I fulfill my promise to him and myself. 

I’m especially pleased that John Vana agreed to co-author the book. John’s an alto player on the faculty at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. I first met him when he invited me to speak at WIU in late 2013. That’s when I toured the Eastern half of the U.S. and Canada for a month with British arranger Tony Faulkner. 

John is a huge Pepper Adams fan. Soon after my visit he agreed to write a major piece on Pepper’s early style (to 1960) for a possible Adams anthology. Not long after that, John started asking me to send him, bit by bit, every Pepper Adams tape, LP and videotape that’s listed in Pepper Adams’ Joy Road. Clearly, “Up to 1960” wasn't enough for him. He wanted to hear it all and consider Pepper’s entire oeuvre.

Eventually, it occurred to me that John’s piece on Pepper’s style would likely cover much of the same terrain that I’d be exploring in the second half of this book. Considering the demands of my day job, perhaps it would be better for me to write the biography and have John (with my input, additions and editorial oversight) write the second section? Wouldn’t it move up the timetable? I got John on the phone and he agreed. He thought it was a really good idea. The anthology might not even happen, I pointed out, so what better place for his study? 

For those either already hip to Adams’ life and recordings or encountering him for the first time, it’s our sincere hope that we convey his extraordinary contribution to the history of Twentieth Century music and inspire readers everywhere to listen anew to his glorious work.

The Thad Jones-Pepper Adams Quintet: New Discoveries

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

I was startled to discover a file of magazine ads for Pepper Adams gigs sent to me on 20 December 2011. Maybe it was sent as a Christmas gift? I completely forgot about the file but found it on my old laptop that I haven't used in quite some time. The email included almost 50 clippings, mostly from the New York Times, Billboard, the Village Voice and New York magazine. 

The value of these documents is how they position Adams in time and reveal the breadth of his work and the nature of his professional relationships. Several documents have already gotten me to change the historical record, especially as they relate to Pepper's discography. I've also had to shift my thinking about the Thad Jones-Pepper Adams Quintet.

Before reviewing Basile's material, it seemed that the Quintet was disbanded in favor of the orchestra. Yes, the Quintet had a few gigs here and there, but they seemed to be mostly clustered in the mid- to late-60s around the time of the 1966 Mean What You Say date for Milestone. Judging from the new data below, however, it's now clear that Thad and Pepper (with Mel Lewis) sustained the quintet for more than eleven years while working together in the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra.

These documents also reveal how producers and club owners capitalized on the success of the orchestra by billing the Jones-Adams Quintet as the "Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Quintet" or the "Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Quintet featuring Pepper Adams." One of the first examples of this was the 1968 Japanese release of Mean What You Say. According to Jerry Dodgion, Pepper had a chance to see the Japanese version of the LP when the Jones-Lewis Orchestra first visited Japan in the summer of 1968. That's when Pepper discovered that the record company had changed the name of the group to the "Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Quintet." Pepper was livid! It's one thing to alter the band leadership on a placard or table tent for a one-nighter. It another thing entirely to do it on a recording. Has anyone seen this release? It might've been released on Milestone via a licensee. 

For years Pepper wanted to form a quintet with Thad Jones. After working together on a cluster of projects – Pepper Adams Plays the Music of Charlie Mingus (1963, Motown), an unissued 1963 date for Motown that I've been trying to get Universal to release, and Oliver Nelson's 1964 classic More Blues and the Abstract Truth – Thad and Pepper finally established a working group in 1965, only to be usurped later that year by the orchestra. More than anything Pepper wanted to work in a small group where he could blow. He was tired of sitting in saxophone sections. Adams, in fact, was very disappointed that Thad established the big band. He resisted joining. About that, see Doc Holladay's commentary in Pepper Adams' Joy Road regarding the formation of the big band and Pepper's hesitancy to be a full-time member.

Apart from listings about Thad Jones, there's lots of surprises below. The 1977 Cuban trip was an important discovery, something that David Amram didn't discuss with me when I interviewed him. It helps explain why Paquito D'Rivera was so glowing in his praise about Pepper when I interviewed him. 

The continued relationship of Pepper and Phil Woods is underscored. Did you know that the bari chair in Woods' octet was conceived for Pepper? Pepper passed away before the group got going and Nick Brignola got the gig. 

The twin-bari 1981 gig with Ronnie Cuber might've been what led them to try to establish a group and book a series of gigs. That never materialized but imagine if tapes of some of these things turn up? 

Here's 29 Frank Basile discoveries that are not already listed in the pepperadams.com Chronology (http://www.pepperadams.com/Chronology/Thaddeus.html) or included in my unpublished updates:

1960

Apr 3: San Francisco: Pepper Adams and Donald Byrd appear on "Jazz Audition," Russ Wilson's evening radio show on KJAZ.

1965

Aug 12: New York: Tony Scott gig for Jazzmobile on 129th Street, with Joe Thomas, Jimmy Nottingham, Marshall Brown, Milt Hinton and Osie Johnson.

1966

Sept 2: New York: Milt Jackson gig at Town Hall, backed by 15-piece band (including Howard McGhee, Jimmy Owens, Julius Watkins, Benny Powell, James Moody, Jimmy Heath and Clifford Jordan) that mostly performed Heath arrangements.

1968

June 15: Staten Island NY: Outdoor concert at Daytop Village, with Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and possibly Kenny Burrell, Frank Foster and Milt Jackson.

Dec 1: New York: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at Town Hall.

1969

Mar 16: New York: Duke Pearson Big Band at the Village Vanguard.

1970

c. Nov: New York: Dick Lavsky jingles with Joe Wilder, Joe Newman, Ernie Royal, Walt Levinsky, Tommy Newsom and Roland Hanna.

1971

Mar 11: New York: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at Town Hall.

May 11-16: New York: Thad Jones-Pepper Adams Quintet, billed as "The Big Little Jazz Band," play a week at the Village Vanguard. Rhythm section: Roland Hanna, Richard Davis and Mel Lewis.

Oct. 29: New York: Rod Levitt octet at the Jazz Center, with Jimmy Nottingham and Jerry Dodgion.

1972

c. Jan 11-16: New York: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Quintet at Slugs.

1973

Sept 19: New York: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra gig aboard a chartered Staten Island Ferry, sponsored by Festival on the River.

Nov 11: Brooklyn NY: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Quintet at the Academy of Music.

1975

Jan 18: New York: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at NFE Theater.

July 14: Mahwah NJ: Phil Woods septet at Ramapo College, with Jay Leonhart and Frankie Dunlop.

1976

Mar 9: New York: Gig at Eddie Condon's.

May 16: Wayne NJ: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Quintet at William Paterson College's Shea Center.

June 6: New York: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Quintet at Eddie Condon's.

Oct 22: New York: Nancy Wilson with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Nov 14: New York: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Quintet at Eddie Condon's.

1977

Jan 27, 28 or 29: Glassboro NJ: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at the Glassboro State College Jazz Festival.

Mar 20: Berkeley CA: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at the University of California.

May: Havana, Cuba: Adams, Thad Jones, David Amram and others perform with Cuban musicians as part of an historic U.S.-Cuban cultural exchange mission.

June 17-18: West Paterson NJ: Gig at Three Sisters.

Dec 16-17: West Paterson NJ: Gig at Three Sisters.

1978

c. Oct 18: New York: Pepper Adams gives a talk abut his life in jazz at Jazzmania. Carla Bley, Chico Hamilton, Adams and Red Rodney were the first musicians invited to give talks about their lives as part of a new Wednesday evening series "Meet the Musician."

1979

Feb 23-24: West Paterson NJ: Pepper Adams at Three Sisters.

1980

Apr 19: New York: Gig at Symphony Space, sponsored by the Universal Jazz Coalition, to raise funds for the Louis Armstrong Jazz Center. Other participants include Vic Dickenson, Roland Hanna, Sam Jones, Sheila Jordan, Norris Turney and Waren Vache.

1981

Feb 6-7: New York: Pepper Adams-Ronnie Cuber Quartet at Jazzmania.