Showing posts with label Zoot Sims. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zoot Sims. Show all posts

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Pepper Adams with the Tommy Banks Trio

 



Here’s my original draft for liner notes to Pepper Adams 

with the Tommy Banks Trio: Live at Room at the Top, 

Reel to Reel’s forthcoming release. 


That cat was something else on that horn! 

–COLEMAN HAWKINS 


Judging from the many accolades that he received from his 

colleagues before and after his death, Pepper Adams was 

equally esteemed by his elders, contemporaries, and younger 

musicians. Among the old guard, Coleman Hawkins was one 

of his biggest fans. “Hawkins admired Pepper,” said drummer 

Eddie Locke. “He said, ‘That cat is something else on that 

horn!’ . . . He didn’t say that about many people; he didn’t talk 

about many guys.” According to Gunnar Windahl, Adams’s 

close friend, Don Byas also adored Adams’s playing, and Milt 

Hinton, out of respect for Pepper’s intellect, dubbed him “The 

Master.” About Adams, Dizzy Gillespie once rhetorically asked 

David Amram, “Man, that guy’s phenomenal, isn’t he?” And 

backstage at a 1985 Adams benefit in New York City, Gillespie 

told Cecil Bridgewater how much he admired what Pepper had 

done harmonically with the instrument; how he had utilized the 

baritone sax in a completely different way from other baritone 

players. “His playing was unbelievable,” agreed Clark Terry, 

“just fantastic! I never heard him jump into anything that 

stymied him: any tune, any tempo, any key. He was a 

phenomenal musician, one that could do anything. His 

rhythmic sense wassuperb, his melodic sense was fantastic. 

He was just a marvelous person and a marvelous musician.” 


Adams’s contemporaries were just as effusive in their praise. 

“He is one of my heroes,” said Bill Perkins. 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 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. Nobody 

is equal: There are some great young players around and they 

owe a great debt to him, but Pepper was monolithic in his 

playing. Bob Cranshaw concurred with Perkins. “Everyone 

knew he was a superstar,” declared Cranshaw. “The rest of 

the baritone saxophonists: They know! . . . In my book he’s 

the Number One baritone saxophonist. I don’t even think of 

anybody else.” Phil Woods heartily agreed: “Any baritone 

player that’s around today,” he avowed in 1988, “knows that 

he was Number One. It’s that simple. He was the best we 

had.” Both Curtis Fuller and Don Friedman felt similarly: 

“He was the greatest who ever played the baritone saxo-

phone,” proclaimed Fuller. Pepper, asserted Friedman, 

“should be considered the number-one-of-all-time baritone 

player. Nobody ever played as many years at that level that I 

ever heard. There’s no question about it.” 


According to Horace Silver, Adams “was an excellent jazz 

soloist. He could handle any of the chord changes that you’d 

throw up in front of him. That’s the mark of a true, great impro-

viser. In my opinion, this is why any of the great jazz soloists 

get their reputation; because they’re consistent.” Bill Watrous 

said about Adams, “Every time he played it was an adventure. 

His ideas and his conception of the stuff that he was trying to 

play was totally original.” Bassist Nabi Totah confessed, “I just

idolized Pepper. Every chorus, you’d think he’d be getting tired, 

he’d play stronger than the one before. There seemed to be no 

end to his ideas. He just forged ahead swinging.” Adams “gave 

a personality to the baritone sax,” attested trumpeter Denny 

Christianson, “that nobody else ever even came close to. No-

body could do what he did on his instrument. He could handle a 

melody just like a great singer, but his improvisation was brilliant 

and he had blinding speed.” Pepper, asserted Junior Cook, “was a 

virtuoso, without a doubt. He exemplified all the best things that

any musician – jazz or otherwise–should aspire to: He had great 

tone, he had great time, and he had great taste.” 


For the younger generation, Adams was a paragon of individuality. 

“There’s very few stylists, real heavyweights,” bassist Todd 

Coolman once told drummer Ron Marabuto about Pepper. 

“Maybe five of them. They’re really rare. He’s one of them.” 

Adams was “a true master of his craft,” said Bennie Maupin, “and 

absolutely one of the finest musicians of his generation.” 

Saxophonist Kirk MacDonald agreed: “He really owned the music 

on a very high level.” As bassist Andy McCloud pointed out, 

Pepper “recorded with all the cats. He was an unknown genius. He 

was like Dexter [Gordon] and one of them.” Guitarist Peter Leitch 

said, “When I started to play, I realized that here’s a white person

who really played this music authentically and was still able to be 

himself.” And Gary Smulyan acknowledged that Pepper “inspired 

me to make a life-long study of the instrument”: It kind of made 

me realize why I got into music. It was not to be a doubler. It was 

not to play all these instruments and get a Broadway show. It 

was to try to find a voice, and to express your life through an 

instrument. That was it. Pepper was the inspiration for that. 


* * * 


It was Pepper’s blistering, spellbinding solo on “Three and 

One” from this date that reminded me of Coleman Hawkins’s 

comment and made me think of including the above excerpt 

from my forthcoming Adams biography. You see, musicians 

have always sung Adams’s praises, yet even to this day he’s 

mostly overlooked, even by jazz historians, as one the great 

postwar virtuosos. Just check the index of any jazz history 

and you’ll see what I mean. Fortunately, with his extraordi-

nary playing on this marvelous release, Adams’s place among 

the greatest of all jazz soloists should finally be irrefutable. 

And it’s no surprise at all that it took Cory Weeds, a working 

musician, to recognize this radio broadcast’s intrinsic value. 

Besides revealing Adams’s brilliance as a soloist, this perfor-

mance is a vitally important document because virtually 

nothing exists of his small-group work from this period. Be-

tween Encounter (Prestige, 1968), his terrific solo date with 

Zoot Sims, Tommy Flanagan, Ron Carter, and Elvin Jones, 

and Ephemera (Spotlite, 1973), his equally superb quartet 

session with Roland Hanna, George Mraz, and Mel Lewis, 

there’s barely a handful of recordings in which Pepper takes 

a solo. Furthermore, just a few obscure Adams audience re-

cordings exist from this five-year span that only a few col-

lectors have heard. What I found especially fascinating was 

hearing both “Patrice” and “Civilization and Its Discontents,” 

two very special Adams originals, performed a full year 

before he recorded them for Spotlite. This indicates that even 

at this stage of his career, five years before he left the Thad 

Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra to go out on his own as a “single,” 

he was composing new tunes not solely for record dates, as I 

previously believed. “Patrice,” it turns out, was registered at 

the Library of Congress on October 29, 1970, but might this 

be the world premiere of “Civ?” For this show, Adams’s select-

ion of tunes was highly representative of what he often chose to 

play. With a competent band, he usually selected a few originals, 

a few Thad Jones tunes, a standard or two, and he’d customarily 

close his sets with “’Tis.” He especially liked old show tunes, 

such as “Time on My Hands” (1930). “Stella by Starlight, of 

course, was by 1972 a very well-known standard. “’Tis” was 

Thad’s brief, uptempo out-theme that since 1954 Pepper almost 

always utilized. “Oleo” served a similar function, though typical-

ly to both conclude a concert and stretch out a bit. And “Three 

and One?” One of Thad Jones’s great compositions, it was an 

Adams feature while he was a member of Jones/Lewis, and a 

tune that he often called in small-group settings. Adams was a 

musician who lived to play, yet whose lust for life was eroded 

by his long-simmering disappointment at being defined by pro-

moters as a big-band baritonist not available for hire, ignored as

a true innovator for much of his career, and barely recorded as a 

leader for most of the 1960s and ’70s. Part of his uniqueness 

was due to his pedigree as a “jazz man.” As Eddie Locke explain-

ed it to me during my 1988 interview with him, “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 going 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. . . . 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 a jazz man. . . . I don’t care who he 

was playing with; he’s gonna sound good because he’s gonna 

blow! He doesn’t give a shit about the other cats. If they play the 

wrong change, he’ll play the wrong one. That’s a true jazz musician. 

Bird was like that. Coleman Hawkins was like that. I put him in 

some heavy company there but that’s what I’m talking about. 


Enjoy! 

Gary Carner Author of Pepper Adams’ Joy Road and Reflectory: 

The Life and Music of Pepper Adams

Monday, March 4, 2019

Chapter Five of the Bio






















© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.












My apologies for missing the February post. My work schedule has shifted since
December. I now work all day Friday through Sunday. I’m just too beat to write
over the weekend. Mondays will now be the new posting day.


It’s been a very productive few months of 2019. Chapter Five of the biography is
mostly done. Currently, I’m working through my last fifty or so interviews,
tweaking things here and there. The interviews will take me through the summer.
Then I can wrap up the chapter and move on to the Listener’s Guide, 1963-1977.
Hearing all of that music, and writing about Pepper’s best solos from the period,
will take the rest of the year to complete. Once done, I can move on to the final
chapter, covering the period 1956-1963. I’m expecting the finish line to be
Christmas, 2020.


Here’s an amusing excerpt from Chapter Five, spoken by the writer Albert
Goldman:


“At that time,” said Goldman, “I always had a 4th of July party.”

I always had a lot of jazz musicians to it, because those guys don’t go out of town on that day and they don’t
know what to do with themselves. I’d always have Zoot, and I’d always have Elvin, and I’d always have them
at my apartment. This year, I did it bigger. I took the whole restaurant. A lot of weird people came: Buddy
Rich. . . . I had this friend at the time who was a real hardcore drug criminal, a wonderful character. He said,
“Al, let me cater the drugs for the party.” I said, “O.K., man, go ahead.” So, they had all these drugs out on
bronze platters that they were passing around, the [chargers] that they put down before they serve you the
meal, then they remove it and put down the plates. They filled all those up with drugs. Some of the Indian
waiters are going around, saying, “Hashish! Hashish!” This is the atmosphere of the party in the afternoon.
The guy who ran the restaurant was a weird cat named Samsher Wadud, who claimed to be a nephew of the
Prime Minister of Bangladesh. He went over to the U.N. that day to demonstrate. He said, “I’m going to leave
you in charge of the restaurant, O.K?” I said, “Fine, don’t worry about it. These are all my people. We have no
problem. If anybody else comes, I’ll just take care of them.” In the course of the afternoon, I think only one
couple turned up who weren’t from the party. It was some big, blonde, buxom English lady and her spinster
daughter, or niece, or something, and they didn’t know what was going on. They just walked into this
restaurant for an Indian meal and people are passing these plates of drugs. I remember they reached into a pile
of marijuana and just put it in their mouths, like it was some seeds they were going to eat, like alfalfa. When
they got through, they asked for the bill. I said, “Oh, no, it’s all on the house. You’re here for the first time,
aren’t you?” And they said, “Oh, you’re so gracious! We’ll have to tell everyone in England when we get
home. . . .”
All my crazy friends were there. Drug dealers. Of course Bob [Gold] was there with his old lady at the
time, and Zoot and Elvin. I remember Zoot passed out completely. He never even got to play. Pepper played
this great musical afternoon we were going to make an album of it, actually. What it was was mostly a lot
of Duke Ellington stuff in a very icy, cool mode, like the frost on a bucket of champagne. It was so beautiful!
I would love to hear him in that mode. I told him, “Play all that cool Ellington stuff.” It’s an afternoon party.
We’re up in the penthouse there, all high as a kite. I said, “Let’s really do it. Do all those Billy Strayhorn
tunes.” It was a very cool, frosted-champagne afternoon.
That afternoon always stuck out in my mind as the kind of thing that Pepper should have been doing a lot
because he loved it. He was just functioning as a musician. He wasn’t an assertive guy. He didn’t want to be a
star. He just wanted to do his own thing, but he wanted to do it under the right auspices. He didn’t want to be
in some shithouse with a bunch of nitwits. And this was a very cool audience. I remember there was a very
hip Brazilian guy who came up with his girlfriend, who was just in from Rio. (I know a lot of people, and the
kind of audience he loved, who could really dig him.) Jack Kroll of Newsweek was there. I remember Jack just
sat there, with his drink, in front of Pepper for about an hour and dug him.
I thought to myself, “This is the kind of gig that guys should always be playing.” But nobody knew
he existed! That’s the tragedy of it. This great talent. I’m telling you, after years and years in the
jazz scene, I’ve heard all the famous, so-called “underground” stars. There’s a lot of these people.
One of them is Zoot’s brother, who played trombone for years in bands in Vegas. He’s a very good
trombone player. There are a number of people; they dropped out of the business because they had
to make a living, they had to put their kids through college, they lived in some weird town, or
something. But over the course of years, you get to hear them all, and, believe me, none of them
were in a league with Pepper. None of them. There wasn’t anybody. Pepper “walked away” from
all these people. He was the hippest, he was the coolest, he was the greatest technician, he was the
most sophisticated, the one who integrated more references.



Because my co-author, John Vana, is teaching a graduate level course this Spring at Western Illinois
about “the big three” (Bird, Trane, Pepper), it seemed like a great time to visit with his students, and
organize a few college lectures in the Midwest around the trip. Accordingly, I’ll be lecturing this coming
April at the University of Wisconsin- Lacrosse, Winona State University, Beloit College, and the
University of Northern Iowa. I’m also taking some vacation time in the Twin Cities.


The baritone saxophonist Anders Svanoe invited me to speak to his students at Beloit. Ultimately, we
decided to put on a concert of Pepper’s music in Madison, Wisconsin. His quartet will perform, and I’ll
read a few passages from Joy Road. It takes place on Wednesday, April 17 at 8pm. Here’s the
announcement:


https://artlitlab.org/events/the-life-and-music-of-pepper-adams-reading-and-concert



Sunday, October 1, 2017

Pepper Adams Interviews










© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.





This month hasn't gone as expected. I developed a case of eye strain from my previous months of writing and editing on my computer. Because of that, I've had to stay away from my manuscript and laptop, and instead fashion other tasks that still allowed me to move ahead with the biography. One of the most important things I've gotten done in September was listening to interviews that Adams did on the radio and in private. Over the years, I've been able to collect these gems:

Peter Clayton: BBC
Alan Stevens: BBC
Alfie Nilsson: Malmo radio
Ted O'Reilly: CJKT, Toronto
Len Dobbin: Montreal radio
Ben Sidran: NPR
Albert Goldman: private interviews
John Reid: private interview

The plan has always been to post some of them at pepperadams.com so you can hear Adams speak about his life. While a few are posted there already, technology has changed and it's necessary to use different software and update the site. That's already in the works. Stay tuned for updates.

Besides the fact that I'm taking a necessary break from writing the biography, the main reason I've been working through these interviews is because Adams occassionally says things that were not covered in my interviews with him nor exist anywhere else in print. I've found that some of his comments not only add to the historical record but sometimes alter the way I have written about parts of his early life. 

Although some of these interviews are more entertaining in nature and mostly feature commercial recordings that Adams did throughout his life, those done by John Reid, Al Goldman and Ted O'Reilly are especially poignant. Reid's brief interview was done in Calgary after a gig in August, 1985. Adams was very blunt in his comments about critics, one of his pet peeves. At that time, already quite ill, Adams was far more direct than usual. Speaking privately after hours, he wasn't constrained by the same degree of politeness that he would convey in a radio interview. 

The same holds true to a certain degree with the private interviews done with Al Goldman. I have two of them. The first was done between sets at the Half Note in New York on September 10, 1971. Goldman, at that time a big Elvin Jones and Zoot Sims fan, was just getting to know Adams. 




The far more significant Goldman interview was done on June 19, 1975. Goldman drove from Manhattan to Adams' home in Canarsie, Brooklyn to conduct an extensive interview over several hours for a feature piece that he was writing about Adams for the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Ultimately, the piece was published in Esquire due to the fact that Goldman's editor at the Times left and the piece was orphaned. This is a dazzling few hours, certainly the most in-depth and fascinating interview of the bunch: two brilliant minds ranging over many topics in great length. I'm very excited to post it soon.

Albert Goldman was a brilliant man and quite a controversial figure in the 1980s and '90s, ultimately dying of a heart attack on an airplane flight to Europe. His obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/30/obituaries/albert-goldman-biographer-is-dead-at-66.html 

He left his tenured English professorship at Columbia University to write several best-selling biographies on Lenny Bruce, Elvis Presley and John Lennon. While his work was denounced by some as sensational (see https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hiltVC3uAh8 and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj2Nd3osbD0), I interviewed him several times about his experiences with Pepper Adams. I always found him to be insightful, provocative, very encouraging to me in my early years of the work, and always on target with his assessments about Adams' life and music. All this comes through in his Adams interview. His profound admiration and respect for Pepper Adams is evident throughout their conversation.

The O'Reilly interviews, too, are extremely insightful because O'Reilly, like Goldman, is an adept interviewer who asks probing questions. I have two O'Reilly radio shows for sure, and possibly a third that I haven't heard in years. 








Sunday, August 23, 2015

Blood Brothers: Pepper Adams and Bob Wilber



© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.


My  apologies to any readers who expected a post yesterday and were disappointed not to see it. For more than a year I've dutifully posted every Saturday. This weekend, however, I needed a slight reprieve. Better to supply something of value than rotely produce drivel just for the sake of a deadline?

I was very pleased this past week to hear from Pug Horton, Bob Wilber's wife. Here's what she wrote:

"Sorry to have taken so long to get back to you--we have been on the road. Are you in NY? We will be coming to NY Sept 26th. Hopefully seeing Mike [Steinman] around that time too. Let me know how we can get together & Bob would love to talk about his relationship with Pepper. He talks about the time in Rochester quite a lot…He hated it except for the time he spent with him!!!"

My reply:

"Thanks so much for your email. I left NYC in 2004 and currently live in Atlanta. I'd be thrilled to speak with Bob again, either by phone or Skype, at that time. I'm heading out of town on Sept. 27th to celebrate my 30th anniversary, back on the 30th, but I'm sure I can grab an hour if those days are best for him. Just let me know. 

Did you see my blog post?: 

Thanks,
Gary Carner



In 1987 I interviewed Bob Wilber about Pepper Adams. It's the only time we ever spoke. There's much I'd still like to ask him about his brief time in Rochester and about his subsequent work with Pepper. As I've written, I believe that Wilber was the single most important influence on Pepper as a young player. I only came to that conclusion by virtue of my research this summer into Pepper's early life. I've had a chance to listen to many hours of interview I conducted in the late 1980s with some of the musicians who were on the Rochester scene in the mid-1940s and knew Pepper--most importantly Raymond Murphy, John Huggler, Everett Gates, Skippy Williams, Ralph Dickinson, and, of course, Bob Wilber. I'd like to ask Wilber if he remembers any specific advice he gave Pepper, such as exercises, fingerings, pieces to play, or any kind of technical advice on getting around the horn. Besides that, anything new he can tell me about Pepper as a 14- to 16-year-old would be fascinating! Wilber, much like Raymond Murphy and John Huggler, was almost three years older than Pepper. In a way, all three of them functioned as Pepper's big brothers and, to some degree, as a prosthetic family after the death of Pepper's father in 1940, when Pepper was nine. I'd like to ask Wilber about that too, or at least his perception of Pepper's sense of loneliness.

Regarding Bob Wilber and the very strong bond that he and Pepper established in those formative early days, it's not surprising how their paths continued to cross as both became in-demand professionals. I've already written how the two of them spent a good amount of time together during Wilber's one semester at the Eastman School in the Fall of 1945. Here's a summary of their very early experience, from pepperadams.com:


1945
cAug: New York: Adams and his mother travel to New York and meet Bob Wilber at a Max Kaminsky gig at the Pied Piper in Greenwich Village. The Pied Piper was later renamed the Cafe Bohemia.

Sept: Rochester NY: Adams begins 10th Grade at John Marshall High School and plays in the school band throughout the year. See http://instagram.com/p/tyuB3PJntF/?modal=true. On Saturday afternoons, Adams, John Huggler and Bob Wilber have sessions at Bob Wilber's apartment, playing along with jazz records. See cJuly 1944. (Wilber was attending Eastman, but only that Fall semester.) Wilber goes to Adams' place to play along with jazz records and have dinner. Wilber also visits with Adams and Huggler at Raymond Murphy's house.

Oct: Rochester NY: Adams in 10th Grade. On Saturday afternoons, Adams, John Huggler and Bob Wilber have sessions at Bob Wilber's apartment, playing along with jazz records. See cJuly 1944. (Wilber was attending Eastman, but only that Fall semester.) Wilber goes to Adams' place to play along with jazz records and have dinner. Wilber also visits with Adams and Huggler at Raymond Murphy's house.

Nov: Rochester NY: Adams in 10th Grade. On Saturday afternoons, Adams, John Huggler and Bob Wilber have sessions at Bob Wilber's apartment, playing along with jazz records. See cJuly 1944. (Wilber was attending Eastman, but only that Fall semester.) Wilber goes to Adams' place to play along with jazz records and have dinner. See cJuly 1944. Wilber also visits with Adams and Huggler at Raymond Murphy's house.
Nov 29-30: Rochester NY: A serious snow storm paralyzes the city. Adams is likely homebound.

Dec: Rochester NY: Adams in 10th Grade. On Saturday afternoons, Adams, John Huggler and Bob Wilber have sessions at Bob Wilber's apartment, playing along with jazz records. See cJuly 1944. (Wilber was attending Eastman, but only that Fall semester.) Wilber goes to Adams' place to play along with jazz records and have dinner. See cJuly 1944. Wilber also visits with Adams and Huggler at Raymond Murphy's house.


I'd especially like to know if Wilber studied or hung out with Eastman professor and clarinetist Jack End. End, against tremendous institutional bias, fought to have jazz at least played by students at Eastman in the 1940s and early '50s, though at that time it was not accepted as an official part of the curriculum. Wilber, it's clear, hated his time at Eastman. Might have an association with End at least made it marginally palatable? Did Wilber introduce Pepper to End? I'd love to know more about what End dealt with at Eastman and more about End and his playing on the Rochester scene.

Unless Pepper saw Wilber in New York on a visit south to the big city, Pepper may not have seen Wilber again from January, 1946, when Wilber left Eastman, until Pepper moved to Detroit in June, 1947. That's because, much to Pepper's mother's credit, on their way west to Detroit, Pepper and his mother lived at the Hotel Edison in Manhattan for a full month. It was then that Adams and Wilber reunited. By then, Wilber was living with Sidney Bechet. Talk about getting close to the source! As musicians, Adams, Murphy and Huggler, with Wilber, had strived, in their listening and practicing, to get as close as possible to the true source of New Orleans music--"from the horse's mouth," as Huggler told me. Now, Adams could finally meet Bechet and see that Wilber was indeed living the dream. Here's my citation about that time:


1947
July: New Yor: Adams moves with his mother to New York City for a month while their belongings are transported to Detroit. They live at the Hotel Edison on 47th Street in the Theater District before moving to Detroit. Cleo Adams decided to relocate because elementary school teaching jobs paid far more in Detroit than in Rochester. Pepper meets Sidney Bechet, probably through Bob Wilber. Pepper studies saxophone with Skippy Williams, the tenor saxophonist in Ellington’s band who he met at the Temple Theatre in early March, 1944 and who first replaced Ben Webster in Ellington's band. See 3-5 Mar 1944. Adams attends rehearsals of the Joan Lee Big Band (based in Hershey PA) at Williams' apartment on 48th Street. Lee's band was an all-white, all-female group that Williams was rehearsing.

After Pepper moved to Detroit, it's not known if Wilber and Adams saw each other or remained in contact until Pepper moved to New York City in early 1956. I'd like to ask Bob about that, if they didn't speak at all for ten years, and whether Bob attended any of those heady loft-jam-sessions around New York City that were taking place when Pepper first arrived. 

The first band that Adams and Wilber actually worked together in as professional musicians was Benny Goodman's. The two of them had this tour:

1959
Apr 1-5: New York: Benny Goodman rehearsals. Later, the Pepper Adams Quintet at the Village Vanguard. See 24-31 Mar. See http://instagram.com/p/sApVGBpniG/?modal=true
Apr 6-9: New York: Benny Goodman rehearsals.
Apr 10: New York: Benny Goodman rehearsal. Later, Benny Goodman "Swing Into Spring" telecast.
Apr 11-21: New York: Benny Goodman rehearsals.
cApr 22: Troy NY: Benny Goodman Orchestra begins its three-week tour. The band boards a bus that morning (in front of the Hotel President on West 48 Street in New York) for its Troy gig that evening, then stays in Albany.
cApr 23: Rutland VT: Benny Goodman Orchestra's second gig of the tour.
Apr 24: Hershey PA: Gig with Benny Goodman, probably at Hershey Park. Herb Geller and Pepper Adams are featured, with the rhythm section (Russ Freeman, Turk Van Lake, Scott LaFaro, Roy Burns), on Bernie's Tune. Other band members are Taft Jordan and Bob Wilber. Dakota Staton and the Ahmad Jamal Trio are also on this General Artists tour package.
Apr 25: Off/travel?
Apr 26: Montreal: Gig with Benny Goodman at the Forum, then Adams and Herb Geller sit in after hours at the Little Vienna with trumpeter Herbie Spanier.
Apr 27: Montreal: Off day for Goodman tour. Adams does small group gig at Vieux Moulin with Herb Geller, Scott LaFaro and Roy Burns.
Apr 28: Toronto: Gig with Benny Goodman at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Apr 29: Buffalo: Gig with Benny Goodman at Kleinhans Music Hall.
cApr 30: New York: Gig with Benny Goodman at Madison Square Garden.

May: Indianapolis: Adams, Scott LaFaro and Bob Wilber sit in with Wes, Buddy and Monk Montgomery at the Missile Club. 
May: Dallas: Adams rooms with Taft Jordan and shares an elevator ride in their hotel with Lassie, the celebrity TV collie, who was in town on a promotional tour.
May: Iowa City IA: Gig with Benny Goodman at the University of Iowa.
cMay 13: Pittsburgh: Gig with Benny Goodman at the Old Mosque.
cMay 14: New York: Returns from Goodman tour.


After the Goodman tour, I don't know to what degree they saw each other in New York or even worked together. There is this gig for the Duke Ellington Society, then the very fine Bobby Hackett date Creole Cooking, for which Wilber wrote the arrangements: 

1966
May 22: New York: Bob Wilber gig for the Duke Ellington Society gig at the Barbizon Plaza Theatre, with Shorty Baker, Quentin Jackson, Jackie Byard, Wendell Marshall, Dave Bailey and Flo Handy. See http://instagram.com/p/sA3ydoJnrT/?modal=true


1967
Jan 30: New York: Bobby Hackett date for MGM, with Bob Wilber, Bob Brookmeyer, Jerry Dodgion, Zoot Sims, et al. Later, possible double appearance with the Joe Henderson All-Star Big Band and Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at the Synanon Jazz Benefit at the Village Theater preceding the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at the Village Vanguard.

Mar 13: New York: Bobby Hackett date for MGM, with Bob Willber, Bob Brookmeyer, Jerry Dodgion, Zoot Sims, et al. Later, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at the Village Vanguard.
Mar 30: New York: Bobby Hackett date for MGM, with Bob Wilber, Bob Brookmeyer, Jerry Dodgion, Zoot Sims, et al. Later, Elvin Jones gig at the Five Spot. See 28-29 Mar.



After the Hackett date, I'm not sure if Adams and Wilber recorded or worked any gigs until the interesting 1972 project below for Music Minus One. The label's concept was to provide a backing band for the practicing soloist, well before Jamey Aebersold started his series. Wilber did tell me about his writing for saxophone quartet (two altos, tenor and baritone). Wilber held rehearsals at his New York City apartment, possibly in the late 1960s. Other than Wilber and Adams, someone I forget played tenor and possibly Rudy Powell played the other alto part. I don't know precisely when the rehearsals took place, if any were recorded, nor over how long a stretch of time the rehearsals lasted. 


1972
June 8: New York: Bob Wilber rehearsal, probably for 19 June.
June 15: New York: Bob Wilber rehearsal, probably for 19 June. See 8 June.
June 19: New York: Bob Wilber date for Music Minus One. Later, possible Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra gig at the Village Vanguard.


In 1974, Wilber put together a band to play Ellington tunes:

1974
Apr 26: New York: Bob Wilber gig at Carnegie Hall, with Taft Jordan and Quentin Jackson, perform a tribute to Duke Ellington.
Apr 28: New York: Bob Wilber gig at the New York Jazz Museum, with Quentin Jackson, Taft Jordan, Larry Ridley and Bobby Rosengarden.

In 1977 Adams and Wilber were in a band together, led by Dick Hyman, doing a tribute to Duke Ellington:

1977
July 17: Nice: Dick Hyman gig at La Grande Parade du Jazz, broadcast on FR3 television. Also, Thad Jones sextet gig at La Grande Parade du Jazz. Later, a third festival gig: Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at La Grande Parade du Jazz.


The Hyman gig for me has special significance. It gives me a chance to hear Pepper with the Ellington big band repertoire and imagine what it might have been like had he actually subbed for Harry Carney. I've written before that Pepper was Carney's designated sub in the Ellington band. Yet, in fifty years Carney never missed a gig! Well, I slightly exaggerate: He missed one two-week stretch of work--just once! Pepper told me that it was easier to reconstitute the Ellington reed section and slide Russell Procope or someone else from the section into the bari chair, then hire a local sub for tenor or alto, than to get Pepper to the gig.

The Hyman performance has additional significance. There's two especially wonderful Adams/Wilber moments. On the very first tune, Ellington's original theme "St. Louis Toodle-Oo," Pepper takes the first solo--classic, harmonically inventive Pepper all the way--and Eddie Daniels and Bob Wilber are both visibly amused by the incongruity of it. Later in the show, Wilber (on alto) and Adams have another beautiful moment together, playing the two opening 8-bar "A" sections in the theme of Ellington's "Blue Goose." (You can see Billy Mitchell totally broken up over how Pepper navigated the passage.) How far Adams and Wilber have traveled since the 1940s!

I'm especially enthused about this concert because I recently acquired a rare video of the TV show. I'm trying to get it uploaded to YouTube so everyone can see it. How about that sax section?: Bob Wilber, Eddie Daniels, Zoot Sims, Billy Mitchell, Pepper Adams.

In 1978, Adams and Wilber were able to play in several venues together in Nice. They were already touring together as part of an all-star 50th Anniversary Lionel Hampton commemorative gig:

1978
June 28-30: New York: Rehearsals with Lionel Hampton.
June 30: New York: Lionel Hampton gig at Carnegie Hall, with Charles McPherson, Bob Wilber, Ray Bryant, et al, recorded by Sutra. 

July 1-2: Saratoga NY: Hampton gig at the Performing Arts Center, with Charles McPherson, Bob Wilber, Ray Bryant, et al.
July 3: Brooklyn NY: Off?
July 4: Travel. Departure for France. 
July 5: Travel. Transfer to Nice. 
July 6: Nice: Off. 
July 7: Nice: Hampton gig at les Jardins des Arenes de Cimiez, with Charles McPherson, Bob Wilber, Ray Bryant, et al., at La Grande Parade du Jazz. Recorded by Radio France. 
July 8: Off. 
July 9: Nice: Hampton gig at les Jardins des Arenes de Cimiez at La Grande Parade du Jazz. Recorded by Radio France. See 7 July.
July 10: Nice: Hampton gig at les Jardins des Arenes de Cimiez, with guest Dzzy Gillespie, at La Grande Parade du Jazz. Recorded by Radio France. See 9 July.
July 11: Nice: Hampton gig at les Jardins des Arenes de Cimiez at La Grande Parade du Jazz. Recorded by Radio France. See 10 July.
July 12: Nice: Dick Hyman gig, "Tribute to Count Basie," at les Jardins des Arenes de Cimiez, at La Grande Parade du Jazz. Recorded by Radio France. 
July 13: Nice: Hampton gig at les Jardins des Arenes de Cimiez at La Grande Parade du Jazz. Recorded by Radio France. See 11 July.
July 14: The Hague: Hampton gig at Prins Willem Alexander Zaal, with Charles McPherson, Bob Wilber, Ray Bryant, et al., at the Northsea Jazz Festival. Recorded by AVRO television. 
July 15: Orange, France: Hampton gig at Theatre Antique, with Charles McPherson, Bob Wilber, Ray Bryant, et al. 
July 16: Nice: Hampton gig at les Jardins des Arenes de Cimiez with guest Stephane Grappelli, at La Grande Parade du Jazz. Recorded by Radio France. See 13 July. 
July 17: Salon-de-Provence, France: Dizzy Gillespie gig, at Cour du Chateau de L'Empri as part of the Festival of Jazz, with Kai Winding, Curtis Fuller, Charles McPherson, Ray Bryant, Mickey Roker, et al. Recorded by Radio France. 
July 18: Perugia: Hampton gig, with Charles McPherson, Bob Wilber, Ray Bryant, et al., and guest Dizzy Gillespie, at Umbria Jazz. Recorded by RAI. 
July 19: Travel. Hampton band arrives from Italy, possibly by bus. 
July 20: Travel. Hampton band arrives in England. 
July 21: Middlesbrough, England: Hampton gig, with Charles McPherson, Bob Wilber, Ray Bryant, et al. 
July 22: Comblain-au-Pont, Belgium: Hampton gig, with Charles McPherson, Bob Wilber, Ray Bryant, et al. Later, a nearby gig with the Georges Arvanitas trio. 


Did Wilber and Adams see each other again after this 1978 tour? Did Bob reach out for Pepper when he heard that Pepper was dying of cancer? Pug Horton told me that Wilber greatly admired Pepper. I think she was referring to both personal and musical admiration. These are just some of the questions I'm eager to ask Bob Wilber. More soon! Have a great week.




                                            (Bob Wilber)



       (Adams in London, at the Ephemera 
            photo shoot, September, 1973)





Saturday, January 17, 2015

Pepper Adams Biography

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.


I've begun writing the second volume. I've modified and signed off on the Epigraph, Prologue and first chapter and I continue to build the Recommended Listening section. Perhaps some of you have noticed that every few days I've been sneaking in my listening choices on my Facebook page? So far, I've posted around seven tunes and videos. Many more are to come, of course. It's been fun listening again and adding them. Today I listened twice to one of Pepper's great masterpieces: Pepper Adams Plays Charlie Mingus.

As for the biography, I'll post the Epigraph below, then the Prologue next week and Chapter 1 in two weeks. After that, you'll just need to wait and read the book! Chapter 1 sets things in motion with a rationale for why Pepper is an important figure. It's intended to entice those not faamiliar with him and his work.  It leads into Chapter 2, something I'm developing, which might be a discussion of his father or other father figures, such as Rex Stewart. The Prologue discusses when I met Pepper and how my work on Pepper came to be.

Here's the Epigraph, stated to me in a Thelonious Monk seminar I took many years ago in Blake's Brookline, Massachusetts apartment:

How many musicians out there are really different?

- Ran Blake





Friday, October 10, 2014

Circular Breathing and Pepper's Greatest Hits

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.



First, my apologies for any repetitive posts. I was doing an overhaul of the blog today and some inadvertent errors occurred. 

Going forward I'll be posting on Friday night. I've got a new day gig and I work on Saturdays.

So, what about that nine-second, beautifully arched, dramatic-as-hell long note that Pepper plays in the opening theme of "I've Just Seen Her?" For those of you who don't know, it's on his great Encounter date for Prestige, with Zoot Sims, Tommy Flanagan, Ron Carter and Elvin Jones. Perhaps this is the only recorded example of Adams employing circular breathing? Can anyone confirm this and tell me if Pepper uses the technique at any other time in his recorded history?

On Pepper's birthday this past Wednesday (8 October), I listened to my "Greatest Hits" CD. In 2012 Motema Music actually asked me to put together a CD of Pepper's greatest commercial recordings for a possible release. You can believe it took me a great deal of time! Below is what I put together, in order of appearance. I tried to get a workable mix of tempos and formats that would showcase his solos and also cohere as a CD. Let me know what you think of the choices.

1. Lotus Blossom   (Jimmy Witherspoon)
2. Chant   Donald Byrd (studio version, with Herbie and Doug Watkins)
3. Bossa Nova Ova  (Thad Jones-Pepper Adams)
4. East of the Sun  (Toots Thielemans)
5. Day Dream  (Pepper Adams-Donald Byrd)
6. Baptismal  (Stanley Turrentine)
7. Three and One  (Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra)
8. I've Just Seen Her  (Pepper Adams)
9. Gone With the Wind  (unreleased: Pepper Adams with Metropol Orkest (+ strings)
10. Salt Peanuts  (Pony Poindexter)
11. Moanin'  (Charles Mingus)
12. Sophisticated Lady  (Donald Byrd)
13. That's All   (Pepper Adams)