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.

Reissuing The Master and Ephemera

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

Happy Labor Day Weekend to all those reading this in the U.S. I've made some progress trying to get The Master and Ephemera reissued. The main imperative for reissuing The Master is to release four unissued tracks. Pepper's Ephemera, for its part, has never been issued on CD! Motema is considering the former and I'm in touch with Tony Williams, owner of Spotlite, about the latter. I'll report back when I learn more. The photos below are from my Pepper Adams archive. They're part of a stack of some 50 photos that were given to Pepper so he could choose an album cover photo. They were taken in London in September 1973.

instagram.com/pepperadamsblog

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

I've spent the last week putting together a very cool gallery of 112 pictures from a wide range of sources. It includes photographs of Pepper Adams and his family, ads for gigs and all sorts of things. Lots of surprises from my collection. Please check it out: instagram.com/pepperadamsblog

Feel free to tap any photo, then like it or comment.

Otra Vez: Thad's Second Joe Williams Date Reassessed

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

I'm finally getting a chance to listen closely to the recording Something Old, New and Blue, originally recorded by Solid State in late April, 1968. It was billed as "Joe Williams and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra but the big band per se is not on it. In fact, the largest instrumentation on any one of the eleven tunes is 11 pieces, and that includes guitar and vibes, not part of the touring band at that time. The date was recorded in Los Angeles and supplemented with a string section. It's not known who did the string arrangements, possibly added after the session was recorded but beautifully integrated into the band arrangement.

The Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra was in San Francisco on 22 April 1968 to do a TV broadcast at KQED Studios for Ralph J. Gleason's show Jazz Casual. This 30-minute episode has been released on DVD (Idem 1014) and on CD (Koch 8563). The personnel touring the West Coast at that time was:

Thad Jones cornet, flh; Snooky Young, Danny Moore, Richard Williams, Randy Brecker tp; Bob Brookmeyer vtb; Jimmy Knepper, Garnett Brown tb; Benny Powell btb; Jerome Richardson as, ss, cl, fl; Jerry Dodgion as, ss, fl; Seldon Powell ts; Eddie Daniels ts, cl, fl; Pepper Adams bs, cl; Roland Hanna p; Richard Davis b; Mel Lewis dm.

The Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra had a week-long engagement at Marty's in Hollywood beginning that evening, stretching from the 22nd to the 27th. I believe Jerry Dodgion told me that the band didn't get paid for that week gig. Pepper, for his part, had a gig in Richmond, Virginia with the Duke Pearson Big Band on 28 April, then he was back in his chair behind the pole at the Village Vanguard on Monday night, 29 April.

It seems likely that Thad would draw players from his band for the Joe Williams session. Why use unknown entities? Frank Basile feels that Mel Lewis is on the date and that Jerome Richardson and Eddie Daniels might take solos. If Pepper's on any tunes, says Basile, he's only on three cuts: One More for My Baby, Everybody Loves My Baby and When I Take My Sugar to Tea. Here's my feedback after listening to these short performances, possibly intended for juke box, 45-rpm release:

1. Young Man on the Way Up: According to David Demsey, Thad wrote this chart and it sounds like it. It also sounds like Mel Lewis is playing drums.

2. Hurry on Down: Obbligato flugelhorn playing behind the opening vocals could be Thad Jones. Piano playing could be Roland Hanna.

3. When I Take My Sugar to Tea: Sounds like a Thad chart. Freddie Green style rhythm guitar playing. The short trumpet solo spots sound like Snooky Young.

4. Honeysuckle Rose: Organ in place of piano. Does anyone know of Roland Hanna playing the instrument? Hank Jones and Wynton Kelly recorded on it so why not? The organ break is very non-descript.

5. Did I Really Live: Opening flugelhorn playing could be Thad Jones. The chart sounds like Thad had a part in it and farmed out the strings to fill in afterwards, which have in this case a "Bird with String" lush romanticism. The long bass notes sound like Richard Davis.

6. Loneliness, Sorrow and Grief: This also sounds like a Thad chart. The piano solo break is non-descript. Very brief tenor playing and muted trumpet in background.

7. Imagination: Guitar and organ. Organ lines could be Roland Hanna. Flugelhorn obbligato might be Thad. Tenor solo behind vocals sound like Eddie Daniels' lacy style, and the guitar chords (behind vocals in a duet setting) sound like it could be Kenny Burrell here. Some of the band figures sound like Thad's writing.

8. One More for My Baby: Vibes added. Terry Gibbs was in LA then, right? Who else would Thad hire? Guitar might be Burrell, who I believe was living there by then too. Guitar is given prominence in this chart, further supporting someone like Burrell in the band. The chart definitely sounds like Thad's. It also sounds like Jerome Richardson on lead alto and on the alto breaks. Piano arpeggios sound like Roland Hanna.

9. Everyone Wants to Be Loved: Organ added in place of piano. This sounds like a Thad chart.

10. Everybody Loves My Baby: The most obvious Thad chart from the opening and throughout. Vibes and guitar added. Prominent use of guitar in the chart.

11. If I Were a Bell: This also sounds like a Thad chart.

Final comments: Joe Williams is terrific throughout and there's some swinging tunes and beautiful moments. I recommend picking this one up. A real obscure gem!  I'm revising my discographical entry from Pepper Adams' Joy Road thusly:

JOE WILLIAMS AND THAD JONES - SOMETHING OLD, NEW AND BLUE

680423

23-27 April 1968, Los Angeles: possible personnel: Thad Jones flh; Snooky Young tp, flh; Garnett Brown, Jimmy Knepper or Benny Powell tb; Jerome  Richardson as; Eddie Daniels ts; Pepper Adams bs; Roland Hanna p, org; Kenny Burrell g; Terry Gibbs vib; Richard Davis b; Mel Lewis dm; Joe Williams voc; string section.

Michael Steinman Review and Discovery

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

Michael Steinman gave me a terrific review in his influential blog Jazz Lives (http://jazzlives.wordpress.com/author/jazzlives/, see below). At the end of his August 5, 2014 post he tantalized me with the discovery of an audience recording he made on July 19, 1972 at the Half Note in New York. Ruby Braff was leading a quartet with Dill Jones, George Mraz and Dottie Dodgion. Toward the end of the evening Pepper sat in on a blues. It's not known why Pepper traveled in from Brooklyn on a Wednesday.

PEPPER ADAMS’ JOY ROAD: AN ANNOTATED DISCOGRAPHY by GARY CARNER

Posted on August 5, 2014 | 4 Comments

I had not known much about baritone saxophonist / composer Pepper Adams before a friend lent me a copy of Gary Carner’s book on him (now in paperback from Scarecrow Press) but I commend both Pepper and the book to you.

First, some music — an excerpt from an uptempo STRAIGHT, NO CHASER with Clark Terry, recorded in 1978:

The book is well-researched, rather than opinion.  Not only did its author speak with Pepper and JOY ROAD is introduced by the eminent Dan Morgenstern, but no other book I know has enthusiastic blurbs from both Phil Woods (alto) and Philip Levine (poetry).

JOY ROAD is an annotated discography.  To those not deeply involved in the music, such a work may seem a collection of marginally-useful pieces of arcane information, suitable only to those strange creatures, “record collectors,” concerned with whether that Charlie Parker solo recorded on a cardboard disc was issued on a Bolivian compact disc. I am exaggerating, but not that much.

But as an annotated bibliography would tell us a great deal about the artistic life of a writer and her relations with the marketplace, an annotated listing of a musician’s recordings would map an artistic journey. The book does not purport to be a biography — Carner is working on one now and hopes it will be finished by Adams’ centennial — but it is full of information about Adams’ life and music from 1947 to his death in 1986.  And that information is more than listings of songs, original compositions, recording data, issued or unissued performances. What makes Carner’s book more than a useful reference work is the interviews he conducted with Pepper and the people who knew and worked with him.

When I received a copy of JOY ROAD, I opened it at random, out of curiosity. I had not been terribly involved in Adams’ work — coming from a long immersion in Harry Carney and Ernie Caceres, among others.  But I stood in the middle of the living room, reading eagerly for a half hour, before remembering that a) I could sit down, and b) other tasks had to be taken care of.  If a book can “stop me in my tracks,” it is one I will read, keep, and value.

Many jazz musicians, so eloquent as creators, grow reticent when asked to speak about their art and their colleagues.  Much of what is published as treasured narrative is frankly insubstantial: “Oh, she liked her drink after the set was through!” “Did I ever tell you the story of X at the diner and what he said to the waiter?” “Y couldn’t stand Z, and always called Z names, but when they got on the stand, they blew!” If we didn’t feel that our heroes were so precious that any scrap of anecdotage, no matter how thin, brought us a step closer, no one would retell such stories. But JOY ROAD is not a collection of shards and detritus important only because they connect with someone we value. Carner’s musicians have been unsually articulate, and their stories have shape and heft.

We read about a bizarre and satisfying gig (even televised) where Pepper, David Amram, and Elvin Jones played at a Horn and Hardart automat in midtown Manhattan; Hank Jones tells Carner, “I never felt I was up to his standards, to tell you the truth.  I was reaching to play along with him”; we learn of Adams’ early work with Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman; encounters with Alfred Lion, Joihn Hammond, and Rudy Van Gelder; concert performances with Mingus and Monk; encounters with younger European musicians and elders of the tribe including Fess Williams, Cozy Cole, Joe Wilder, Benny Carter, Milt Hinton; the birth and development of the Thad Jones – Mel Lewis Orchestra; an informal session in Eugene H. Smith’s loft with Adams playing piano to Zoot Sims’ tenor; recordings with Donald Byrd, Oliver Nelson, Duke Pearson, Blue Mitchell, Jimmy Rowles, Joshua Breakstone, and a hundred other notables.

Equally intriguing are glimpses into the life of a valued New York session player, for Adams was understandably in-demand for pop recordings, often as an uncredited member of the ensemble, with Aretha Franklin, Dakota Staton, Sonny and Cher, The Cowsills, The Nice, The Rascals, Brook Benton, Jon Lucien, Esther Phillips, film soundtracks, industrial films, and more.

Ultimately, JOY ROAD did a number of things for me, even though my first reading of this 550-plus page book was of necessity quick rather than deep. I found recordings I’d known nothing about — Carner has had access to Adams’ personal appointment book, and has spoken with more than a hundred musicians. But more than that, I have a sense of Adams as an individual — reading Dostoevsky, listening to Berg, encouraging younger musicians, fierce when he felt unjustly treated — and I look forward to the biography, which Carner is tentatively calling In Love with Night.

I will close with my single Pepper Adams sighting. In 1972, several friends and I followed Ruby Braff to gigs.  Although Ruby was unpredictable and unreasonably given to rage, he was always pleasant to us and allowed us to tape-record him. On July 19 of that year, my friend Stu and I came to the Half Note to record Ruby with the Welsh pianist Dill Jones, bassist George Mraz (then working with Pepper in the Thad Jones – Mel Lewis ensemble, and Dottie Dodgion on drums.  About two -thirds through the evening, where the music had been very sweet, with Ruby’s characteristic leaps through the repertoire of Louis, Duke, and Billie, a tall man ascended the stand with a baritone saxophone, was greeted warmly by the players, and the quintet launched into an extended blues in Ab.  I remember Dottie Dodgion being particularly enthusiastic about the unnamed musician’s playing, who packed his horn and went off into the warm Greenwich Village night.  Who was that unmasked man?  The subject of Carner’s book, and yes, the tape exists, although not in my possession.

To learn more about Adams, JOY ROAD, and Carner, visit his Pepper Adams website and his Pepper Adams blog, THE MASTER 

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Pacific Jazz Puzzles Solved

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

I'm excited to report that jazz researcher James Harrod has discovered the actual recording dates of the James Dean Story and Critics' Choice, Pepper Adams' second date as leader. Harrod confirmed the new information by obtaining copies of AFM contracts. It turns out Pepper did three separate August, 1957 dates for Pacific Jazz, all done at Radio Recorders in Hollywood. On August 13, from 2:00 to 6:30 p.m., Bud Shank led the first James Dean Story session with the following personnel: Charlie Mariano, Herbie Steward as; Bill Holman, Richie Kamuca ts; Pepper Adams bs; Claude Williamson p; Monty Budwig b; Mel Lewis dm; Mike Pacheco bongos; FEATURED SOLOISTS: Chet Baker tp, voc; Bud Shank as, fl.

On August 14, at almost the same time, Bud Shank was again noted as leader for a follow-up date. Its personnel was the same, but augmented with three additional brass: Ray Linn, Don Fagerquist tp: Milton Bernhart tb.

For both Shank sessions there's no listing in the AFM logs of what titles were recorded on either date. If anyone has the recording and can help me identify what tunes have the added brass, please comment below. That will help me make corrections that I'll post at pepperadams.com.

With respect to Critics Choice, Harrod wrote the following in his blog:

"Pepper Adams' other appearance on Pacific Jazz was as leader for his album, CRITIC'S CHOICE, PJM-407. Both Jepsen and Bruyninckx list the correct date of this recording session for Dick Bock, August 23, 1957. The session was at Radio Recorders from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m."

Regarding Bill Holman and Johnny Mandel's participation, Harrod emailed me this:

"The contracts just list the musicians. Holman might have retained the charts that he arranged. I believe that he has placed most of his archive with the LOC. He received arranger credit on the 14th only. Mandel is not listed as arranger on the 13th. He might have had a direct agreement with Dick Bock for his services. The back liner of P-2005 notes that Mandel arranged The Search, Jimmy's Theme, and Success; with Holman arranging the other selections. Mandel might have retained his charts as well."     

Harrod also told me that Chet Baker was listed as co-leader merely as a marketing strategy to boost sales. Also, Johnny Mandel likely functioned as a conductor at both sessions.

You can read all about it at Harrod's blog Jazz West Coast Research: http://jazzwestcoastresearch.blogspot.com/2014/07/bud-shank-chet-baker-theme-music-from.html

Ephemera

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

I'm happy to report that Glenn Wilson at the University of Illinois is currently working with engineer Paul Wickliffe to reinstate a few solos, edit one extra track (Doctor Deep) and master the big band date recorded last year of Adams' tunes. Once this is complete and the tunes are reordered, UI will be shopping it around to labels, now that Motema has suspended their Pepper Adams series. I'll update you as I learn more. As a fall-back plan, UI has their own label and can release it that way. Again, to all of you who contributed to the 2013 Kickstarter campaign, thanks so much for your support and patience. 

In case you were worried, Motema's five-volume digital set of Pepper's music and their physical Volume 5 CD (Alexis Cole Sings Pepper Adams) and Sampler (of the other four dates) are still in print and available. It's just that they will not continue building the series with new volumes.

A few other things are going on. Yesterday (Friday, July 25, 2014) Steve Cerra reprinted his lengthy profile of Pepper Adams in his important blog Jazz Profiles. His piece includes a transcript of Ben Sidran's marvelous 1986 interview with Pepper for NPR. You can listen to the interview at pepperadams.com. Along with the Pepper profile, Cerra also was very kind to reprint Dan Morgenstern's foreword and my preface to Pepper Adams' Joy Road. I'm very grateful to Steve for all the support he's given me and I look forward to his forthcoming review/interview.

Also forthcoming, Bert Vuijsje in The Netherlands will be reviewing my Pepper book in either Dutch or Flemish. Michael Steinman has also agreed to review it on his blog Jazz Lives.

I'm excited that in the next month or so the Greenville Jazz Collective Big Band, led by trombonist Brad Jepson, will be performing some Pepper charts I've commissioned. That's worth the three-hour roundtrip drive from Georgia! Also, Aaron Lington's big band chart on Pepper's sumptuous ballad Now in Our Lives has been completed and he's looking to get it recorded so it can be posted at pepperadams.com. Any takers?

Lastly, I've been invited to contribute a piece on Pepper Adams and Detroit for a collection of pieces on Detroit's musical history. It's being assembled by ML Liebler for Wayne State University Press, Pepper's alma mater.