Pepper Adams, 1947

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

I stepped back from writing this week, partly because I wanted some perspective, mostly because I attended a training program for work. I did read Chapter 2 in my down time and made some minor changes. One of my readers looked it over and made some important suggestions. More work to do, as always.

I'm posting the last section of the chapter below (without corresponding footnotes). Also, as of today, because of the new demands of my day job I will be moving to monthly posts, done on the first Sunday of each month. Thanks for your continued interest!

       From the mid-1940s through the mid-1950s pianist Joe Strazzeri ran Squeezer’s, his club at 420 State Street across the street from Kodak. Typically, gigs were followed by open jam sessions with white and black musicians alike. “Pepper used to stop in there and just get on the stand,” said  trumpeter Leo Petix. “He was around town. He was looking to get with a group and get on the road.”106 Even though he was far from being an accomplished player, pianist John Albert heard him once in a Rochester club and felt that he had a conception of what he was doing as a soloist. “He played quite well and for a person his age (middle teens) he had already developed a style, certainly different than anyone there that day,” said Albert.107

 

He was playing a soprano sax. The rhythm section (I don’t recall who they were) responded to his playing. He was a good “time” player and left holes they could fill in. That’s what I remember most about his style. He would blow a single note or a phrase and then wait for the rhythm to come to the next change or even go by it, and then he would dig in and catch up with great time and ideas. This to me was different than the other horn men; they seemed to stay on top of the beat and didn’t seem to use the rhythm [section] to their best advantage or let them have some fun too on the chorus. So I guess what I heard that made him different and new was a thinner, biting sound. [He] played more notes and more interesting melodic flights and used the rhythm section like Miles Davis.108

 

“The musicians were half and half in their comments,” added Albert. “The horn men weren’t that 

‘gassed’ but the rhythm section was impressed. I know that later when other horn men were changing 

their ideas and sound I thought back to that day and I wondered if any of them remembered where 

they heard it first.”109

Pepper Biography News

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

Somehow this past week I wrote a complete first draft of Chapter 2 of Pepper's biography. I had so many pages of notes from other times that I wrote about him or prepared college lectures. The chapter covers the period 1930-1947 and also dives into (as I discussed last week) Adams' parental genealogy. On the genealogy, I added more details about the derivation of the Adamses, all the way back to the Eleventh Century, and some more information on just how tough a dude his sixth great-grandfather, James Adams, was: how he survived the Battle of Dunbar, his march and incarceration, the voyage to the New World and his servitude. James Adams' grit and determination is part of Pepper Adams' DNA.

Here's how the chapter falls:

1. Father's history

2. Genealogy

3. Family music history

4. History of Rochester, New York

5. The move to New York, 1931-1935

6. Pepper, 1935 to his father's death in 1940

7. Rochester war effort

8. 1940s Rochester jazz scene

9. Pepper, 1941-1944

10. Duke Ellington and Rex Stewart at the Temple Theatre; its many implications

11. Raymond Murphy taks about Pepper

12. Jack Huggler talks about Pepper

13. The Elite

14. Isolation

15. John Albert talks about Pepper Adams

Here's an excerpt from the chapter (without footnotes):

Although Adams was still playing in the New Orleans style, his taste in music was already very well developed in 1944.

I was studying more classical music at the time. Although I enjoyed jazz, which I listened to on the radio, which is what you did in those days, it was really classical music which interested me first. Then, when I started to hear Ellington and all those chords and voicings I knew immediately: . . . Debussy, Ravel, Elgar, Delius, the tonal palettes of twentieth-century music were all there. You know, the rough kind of excitement of the Basie band could be a lot of fun and I certainly liked them as soloists but Duke’s band was an entirely different ball game.”63

“Don’t put them next to nobody else,” cautioned Skippy Williams about the Ellington band.

That band, you couldn’t touch them! [Duke] would go back and get some old tricky things like “Caravan” and those kinds of things. He could put some chords on you. They would put some double augmented chords on you, six-note chords, and they would stretch it out in such a way, man, it would sound like five bands were swinging. He would change the chords and make them much heavier. Say, for instance, if you’re making C double augmented it would be C-D-G flat-A flat-B flat and he knew just where to put them to broaden the sound.64

“I was at a restaurant next door to the theater there downtown in Rochester,” said Williams. “Pepper came in and he told me he had heard me play and he liked my playing. He said he played tenor sax. . . . Back when I met him,” Williams continued, “I had taken Ben Webster’s place in Duke’s band. He was very enthused about that.”

I spent as much time as I could. He was working at a shoe store or something. . . . He was asking me about my tone and I told him some certain tricks, how to build his chops up. Well, see, a lot of guys, they try to use their lip a certain way. They don’t let the horn get the right, true sound. You got to let the reed do more vibrating. You have to know how to blow and how to use your belly. . . . He said, “Can I bring my horn by?” I said, “Sure. You can come by any time. . . .” He asked me, “How do you memorize all those things? I never see you looking at the music.” I said, “Next time, come up and look.” He looked up there. They had comic books. We carried about thirty or forty comic books at the time. People think, well, we’re reading Duke’s music but we’d be up there playing like hell and everybody’d be reading comic books.65

Paternal Genealogy

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

Happy Father's Day to everybody in the U.S. I wasn't anticipating starting Chapter Two of the Pepper Adams biography this past week. I started organizing some of my materials for it after I finished Chapter One. But then I found myself finding, much to my delight, all sorts of previously written text. When I starting piecing things together I began to write and refine. Now I have six pages written and probably another twenty pages worth of notes that I need to rework. It includes a great deal of transcribed interview material from several people who knew him well as a child, specifically Raymond Murphy and Jack Huggler.

Essentially, Chapter Two is in place. It discusses the period 1930-1947, from the time Adams was born through the time he returned from Rochester, New York to Detroit. One section, already done is his father's genealogy. It wasn't until two days ago through today that I fit it all together. I was helped immeasurably by Pepper's cousin, Joie Gifford, who lived in the Seattle area (Whidbey Island) and who I presume passed away a few years ago. All my emails to her have bounced back and phone numbers are no longer of any use. Gifford did the pioneering research with another family member on the Adams line and handed it to me years ago on a silver platter. I only had to figure out what I had, then follow her lead to fit in a few extra pieces. I'll share it with you here.

What follows is one section of Chapter Two, with some footnotes beneath it. One discusses the presidential Adams family and its relationship to Pepper's line. How appropriate for Father's Day that I would post this about Pepper's dad and his family! Enjoy!

The paternal Adams line in the United States stretches back eight generations to James Adams, Pepper’s sixth great-grandfather.2 James Adams, of Scottish origin, was captured on September 3, 1650 by Oliver Cromwell’s forces at the Battle of Dunbar. Only fifteen years old at the time, Adams was fighting for the monarchy on behalf of Scotland during the final years of the English Civil War. A few months after his capture he was ordered as a prisoner of war to board the Unity for passage across the Atlantic Ocean to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, arriving in Charlestown in December, 1650. Adams was sentenced to seven years of labor at the Saugus Ironworks in Lynn, Massachusetts.3 An indentured servant at Saugus, Adams lived in a four-man-to-a-house dwelling, was allowed to work the land four days a week, and was mandated to spend the other three days toiling at the Iron Works. Once obtaining his release in 1657, Adams founded with a few others in Boston the Scots’ Charitable Society, the Western Hemisphere’s oldest charitable organization.4 Five years later he married a Puritan, Priscilla Ramsdell, in Concord, Massachusetts who bore him seven children.

One of his sons, James Jr, moved his family to nearby Rhode Island, where his son Nathaniel was born in 1708. Nathaniel, Pepper’s fourth great-grandfather, likely died in Groton, Connecticut, where his son James III, one of ten children, was born in 1732. James in turn moved his family inland to Upstate New York, where it would be based for the next four generations.

By the mid-nineteenth century, Pepper Adams’ ancestors had settled near Rome, New York. Pepper’s grandfather, Nathaniel Quincy Adams, married Alice Frances Cleveland there in 1879 and they had five children: Mina, Harry, Rita, Marguerite, and Pepper’s father Park. The youngest of five children, Park was born in Rome on January 19, 1896. Nathaniel Quincy Adams’ obituary goes into considerable detail about the clan:

Nathaniel Q. Adams, 71, former Rome hotel man, died suddenly at his home in Oriskany yesterday afternoon. He was in the garden when taken ill and died before medical aid could be given.

Nathaniel Quincy Adams was born in Westmoreland [on] April 15, 1858, son of the late Nathaniel Q. and Angeline Eames Adams. His father, who was a contractor and builder, invented and patented in 1828 certain new features of the threshing machine which later were used with success. The elder Adams at one time owned the old Verona Spring House. When Mr. Adams was four years old the family moved to Verona Mills where he learned the wagonmaker’s trade, which he followed at that place until he was 28 years of age. He then located in Rome where he was a resident for more than a quarter of a century. In the latter city he at first pursued his trade and subsequently bought a hotel on South James Street, then known as the Temperance Hotel, which he conducted for ten years as the Adams House.

Ill health compelled him to sell out and retire in 1913. He then moved to Utica and for several months lived on State Street, near Court Street. In 1914 he bought a home in Oriskany.

Starting as a lad in modest circumstances, Mr. Adams gained a reputable place in business. He was a member of Waterbury Memorial Church, of which he was a trustee for several years. For more than 25 years he had been a member of Fort Stanwix Lodge 63, IOOF. Mr. Adams was also a member of Oriskany Lodge 799 F & AM.

He was married at Verona Mills in 1879 to Miss Frances Cleveland, who survives with two sons and three daughters: Harry A. of Chicago; Park of Detroit, Michigan; Mrs. Frederick Weaver of Hollywood, California; Mrs. Allen B. Head of Tallahassee, Florida; and Mrs. Leroy Johnston of Los Angeles.5

The 1880 census lists Nathaniel Adams as a boat builder. His trade at that time was no doubt influenced by his proximity to the nearby Oneida Lake and the Erie Canal that passed directly through Rome. Some 23 years later in an entirely different line of work, you still couldn’t get a shot of whiskey at the Adams House hotel but you could get a meal for a quarter. At that time electric streetcars traveled between Rome and Utica through Oriskany, the halfway point between both cities. Its train stop was directly across the street from Adams’ Oriskany home. Mercifully, Pepper’s grandfather died just a few months before the Stock Market Crash of 1929. He would be spared the misery that his wife and children would endure for the next decade.

2The authors acknowledge the pioneering genealogical research done by Pepper’s cousin Joie Gifford. According to the site http://en.geneanet.org, “the surname of Adam is of great antiquity in Scotland. Duncan Adam, son of Alexander Adam, lived in the reign of King Robert Bruce, and had four sons, from whom all the Adams, Adamsons, and Adies in Scotland are descended.” (In the twelfth century Robert the Bruce led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England. He regained Scotland’s independence and is still revered as a national hero.) Pepper’s sixth great-grandfather, James Adams, may have been born in Carlisle, Cumberland, England, just over the Scottish border, around 1635.  He died in Concord, Massachusetts on December 2, 1707. Although Pepper Adams believed that he was 100% Irish, the evidence points to him being at least half Scottish and half Irish. Furthermore, it’s unclear if the Adams line that produced two American presidents (John and John Quincy) is in any way related to James Adams and his family. Whereas James Adams was Scottish, though possibly being born in Northern England, John Adams’ second great-grandfather’s family was English, born in Somersetshire, 300 miles away, west of London in the southern part of the country. A more detailed genealogy of both Adams families in England in the 1600s and earlier and would be needed to see if they were related.

3Saugus, a subsidiary of The Company of Undertakers of the Iron Works in New England, was founded by the Colonial Governor John Winthrop and several other entrepreneurs.

4The Society awards undergraduate scholarships to the Scottish-American community and provides relief to individuals and Scottish families in need. The Society also seeks to promote Scottish and Celtic heritage through education, participation in highland games, parades and other cultural events throughout the Greater Boston area.

5June 22, 1929 edition of the Rome Sentinel.

Detroit Groove: Al McKibbon

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

I'm very pleased and genuinely excited to report that I've finished the first chapter of Pepper Adams' biography. I've been building to this moment for 34 years so for me it's very gratifying to be at long last getting my thoughts about Pepper down on paper.. Some of you might not know that I first conceptualized this project in 1984. I wanted to write a biography of a jazz musician. Somehow, really quite miraculously, Pepper became my subject. What a blessing!

Entitled "What Is It?" the twenty pages cover 1947-1951, the period of Adams' life in or transitioning to Detroit. The chapter is divided into sections in this order:

1. Adams seeing Charlie Parker live for the first time. 

2. Why Adams moved from Rochester NY to Detroit, and its many implications.

3. Taking a month of saxophone lessons in New York City with Skippy Williams.

4. The racial climate in Detroit.

5. The influence of Grinnell's Brothers Music House.

6. Mentorship with Wardell Gray, the talent show with Lionel Hampton, meeting Charles Mingus.

7. Adams goes to Wayne University, he buys his Berg Larsen mouthpiece and his first Selmer horn.

8. Gig with Little John and His Merrymen, first gig with Donald Byrd and Paul Chambers, mentorship with Beans Bowles, enlisting in the Army.

Chapter Two will be called "Inanout." It will explore Adams' early life, moving around a great deal from Detroit to rural Indiana and to various places in Upstate New York. Much of his time, from about three years old until sixteen, was spent in Rochester, New York. Rochester's history, especially its World War II climate and jazz scene, will be examined. The effect on him -- of not being grounded, of having attachment and intimacy issues -- will be discussed. 

Because I spent much of the week wrapping up Chapter 1 and then organizing 150 pages of notes for Chapter 2, there's not anything else to add. I do have some "outtakes" that I won't be using for the biography that I hope you find interesting. What follows are some notes and quotes from my 1988 interview with the great Detroit bassist Al McKibbon that likely won't make the Pepper biography. In addition are some notes from his interview for the Smithsonian.

My interview with McKibbon:

Lanny Scott was a fine pianist from Cleveland who played around Detroit. According to McKibbon, he played like Art Tatum.

"When I was 16 or 17, I worked at a place called the B&C. That was a place that had an old-time vaudeville format. They had a bunch of singers, male and female, and they would do what they called "ups." They did turns, coming up to entertain. We had a five-piece band behind them. They would play and the girls would go around to the different tables and pick up the tips, sometimes not with their hands! We played whatever were the popular tunes of the day, and blues, of course. I never played rock 'n' roll. That was never a part of it when I was a kid, never. Even before that, I played with a dance band. They had two or three or four dance bands around there. We tried to play like Basie or Jimmie Lunceford or Duke Ellington."

Cut Collins was Ocie's husband and drummer. Another band was Hal Green. Another was Gloster Current. His brother, Lester, played trumpet. He had a good band and later became known for his work with the NAACP.

Today it's thought of as a suburb but, in the 1930s, Pontiac was another town a long way away from Detroit. 

McKibbon never played Hastings Street. That's where all the "joints" were based. In McKibbon's view, they were scuzzy, rough-and-tumble places. In the twenties, Hastings Street "had a good theater over there that had vaudeville. I saw the first sound movie over there: Al Jolson, The Jazz Singer." This is where he saw Butterbeans and Susie, Ethel Waters and others.

Peers in Detroit: Saxophonist Ted Buckner, drummer Kelly Martin (who played a long time with Errol Garner). McKibbons' group at the Congo Club included Howard McGhee and Matthew Gee (trombonist; though from Newark, he was in Detroit for a long time), Kelly Martin, Wardell Gray, Teddy Edwards. It was about 10 pieces--a killer band, led at first by Martin, then co-led by McGhee and another. Their guitarist, Ted Smith, went with Andy Kirk: "Good guitarist." Fantastic band. In 1940, "Lionel Hampton came through there with his first big band. Carl George, his lead trumpeter, said, 'Hey, I'll come down and play some first with you guys.' 'Oh, fine,' McKibbon related sardonically. He came in the door and Howard McGhee was hitting altissimo something. He never took his horn out! Two sets, he listened to us."

Around 1940: "The Paradise Theater used to feature New York shows. I remember one show was going to hang over there, so the chorus guys and girls came into the [Congo] club where we were playing and we had to play for them. We played for Una Mae Carlisle, Billie Holiday."

"The Cozy Corner had a five piece group in there that was really swinging! J.C. Heard played in there."

About Detroit: "There were all those people there, all playing good. They had some tenor players and piano players that used to wipe everybody out! There was one tenor player named Lorenzo Lawson. He went to audition for Basie's band. The rehearsal was late and he said, 'The hell with them,' and went home. . . Trombone Smitty. I thought he was fantastic! He used to take his horn out of pawn and play the job and put it back. There was another guy there by the name of 'Cubby' . . . He played the Cozy Corner with J.C. Heard. Bill Johnson played trumpet."

Lawson was fantastic, but likely never recorded. He played like Prez. Julius Watkins came from there. Major Holley was younger. So was "Bags."

"There used to be a guy around there, when I was really not playing too well. His name was Frank Fry. He was a hell of a trumpet player! There was another name, Buddy Lee. He used to teach a lot of trumpet players that came through there. In the thirties, yeah. Lannie, the piano player. There was Maurice King, the saxophone player. I used to be in his band.”

Smithsonian interview with Al McKibbon:

In the early 1930s, McKibbon played with Milt and Teddy Buckner (alto, originally with Lunceford), and later with drummer Freddie Bryant.

At the Graystone Ballroom, depending on the weather, they had either inside or outside dancing. Fletcher Henderson, McKinney's Cotton Pickers, Luis Russell (with Louis Armstrong), Ellington and Cab Calloway played there. McKibbon's older brother, Alfonso McKibbon, played guitar and banjo with McKinney's Cotton Pickers and encouraged his brother to play bass, thinking string bass would be the new thing. Ted Smith, guitarist, played like Charlie Christian. He, McKibbon, and a saxophonist had a trio. Milt Buckner, not George Shearing, invented the locked-hands style of piano, he pointed out. He played the Congo Club, then the Three Sixes with Teddy Buckner's band--Kelly Martin on drums (who played with Erskine Hawkins). Wellman Braud was McKibbon's first influence. He had a big sound and McKibbon strove for that big, strong sound. He also liked the way Walter Page walked. After them, Blanton and Pettiford were an influence on his playing.

                                   (Al McKibbon, Bud Powell's favorite bassist)