Pepper Adams: Saxophone Trailblazer

 

I’m eagerly awaiting the release of Pepper Adams: Saxophone Trailblazer.

The ship date is September 1. It’s the abridged version of Reflectory:

The Life and Music of Pepper Adams, the ebookthat I published in 2021, four days before Adams’s 91st birthday:

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

The paperback is available as a pre-order:

https://sunypress.edu/Books/P/Pepper-Adams

It can also be pre-ordered on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. See the

links below.

 

If anyone is interested in reviewing it, request a review copy here:

https://sunypress.edu/Requests/Request-for-Media-Review-Copies 

An excerpt of the paperback appeared recently on Ethan Iverson’s

newsletter Transitional Technology (#TT 288) to correspond with the

book’s upcoming publication: https://iverson.substack.com/

Frank Basile sent me a link to 314 E 6th St #10, the apartment that Adams

and Elvin Jones shared in mid-1959. It looks rather posh now but it certainly

wasn’t then: https://streeteasy.com/building/314-east-6-street-new_york/10

On October 8, 2023, Pepper’s 93rd birthday, Aaron Lington and I will be

hosting the fifth Adams Roundtable. As with all of them, it will be eventually

posted on YouTube and at https://www.pepperadams.comThe fourth installment, still in the editing phase, will be posted in the next

month or so. The previous three can be found here:

https://www.pepperadams.com/PanelDiscussions.html 

Here’s the roster thus far for #5:

Noah Pettibon: unknown solo

Pat LaBarbera: Reminiscing in Tempo

Bevan Manson: Compositional Aspects of Selected 

Pepper Tunes

Aaron Lington: unknown solo

Glenn Wilson: unknown solo 

Jason Marshall: unknown solo 

Danny Harrington: unknown solo

Russell Scarbrough: Thad, Pepper, and Mingus

Gordon Vernick: unknown solo

John Vana: “Lover” (1977)

Kevin Goss: "My Shining Hour" (1980)

Joseph Trahan: “Alone Together” (1983)

Ronnie Burrage: “Dobbin” or “Doctor Deep” (1985)

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pepper-adams-gary-carner/1143138665

https://www.amazon.com/Pepper-Adams-Saxophone-Trailblazer-Excelsior/dp/1438494351/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=9781438494357&qid=1687401654&sr=8-1 

Quick Takes

 

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable beginning to the summer.

Recently, new chronology links were posted at

https://www.pepperadams.com/,updating both Adams’s life while affiliated with Thad Jones, and

his concluding eight years after he left Jones/Lewis:

https://www.pepperadams.com/Chronology/InternationalSoloist.pdf

https://www.pepperadams.com/Chronology/Thaddeus.pdf

The Adams Panel #4 that I conducted with Aaron Lington’s help

is almost ready to be posted. It’s taken a lot of time to prepare due to

one of our panelist’s audio issues.

I’m excited to announce that an outline from Noah Pettibon is expected

this summer for his forthcoming book on Adams, co-written with John

Vana.

Coinciding with the Fall release of the paperback edition of Reflectory

will be Panel #5, scheduled on October 8, Adams’s 93rd birthday. The

roster of participants so far is terrific!:

Pat LaBarbera: Reminiscing in Tempo

Bevan Manson: Compositional Aspects of Selected Pepper Tunes

Noah Pettibon: solo from Encounter (1968)

John Vana: “Lover” (1977)

Kevin Goss: "My Shining Hour" (1980)

Joseph Trahan: “Alone Together” (1983)

Ronnie Burrage: “Dobbin” or “Doctor Deep” (1985)

Aaron Lington: unknown solo

Glenn Wilson: unknown solo 

Jason Marshall: unknown solo 

Danny Harrington: unknown solo

Updates to PepperAdams.com

 

I learned recently that Claudette Adams, Pepper’s widow, has passed away.

Excerent Music, Pepper’s publishing company, is likely now being overseen

by Dylan Hill, her son and Pepper's stepson.

I’ve been told that the Excelsior paperback version of Reflectory: The Life

and Music of Pepper Adams will be published this September. Once

available, a link to it will be posted on pepperadams.com, and it will be sold

through online booksellers, such as Amazon.com. I’ve also been told that it

may also be available at neighborhood bookstores, at least in the US,

though you may have to order it.

Updates made to  my liner notes for Paul Tynan and Aaron Lington’s new

Bicoastal Collective release were just submitted.Their record company’s

owner didn’t like my opening, feeling it wasn’t directly about Tynan and

Lington, and that it also sounded like “sour grapes”:

Inasmuch as Wynton Marsalis has served as a double-threat jazz and

classical recording artist, why haven’t Paul Tynan and Aaron Lington

done the same? Both possess the pedigree, musicianship, and virtuosity

that made Marsalis a dual cash cow for Columbia Records beginning in

the 1980s, when Tynan and Lington were youngsters. Marsalis’s status

as the only jazz player in the 1980s and ’90s who, as a featured soloist,

also recorded the classical repertoire with symphony orchestras, is typical

in the US. According to Robert Frank and Philip Cook’s The Winner-

Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest

of Us

, “Top performers tend to monopolize pay and prestige, leaving little in the

way of either gain or glory for the vast numbers of also-rans.” Alas, although

Tynan and Lington by the mid-nineties were eminently qualified to be

featured on both jazz and classical dates, offers never came their way. 

The most recent Pepper Adams roundtable that Lington and I convened, #4,

should be posted on YouTube and https://www.pepperadams.com/soon. The first three are here: 

https://www.pepperadams.com/PanelDiscussions.html Some modifications still need to be made to fix a few music examples. The

event broke new ground, and musicians should be delighted with it. Panel #5

can be expected sometime this fall, corresponding with the paperback release

Pepper Adams: Saxophone Trailblazer.

Peter Kang’s third-year recital of Adams tunes at University of Toronto is here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5SetgI9r1Q&t=1814s  I hope to post his charts at pepperadams.com.

A new version of Disco Updates, the place where I make changes and

corrections to Joy Road: An Annotated Discography of Pepper Adams, has

been posted. So too have updates to three parts of Adams’s chronology:

Early Years: 1930–1958, Byrd-Adams Quintet: 1958–1961, and Journeyman: 1961–1964.

https://www.pepperadams.com/JoyRoad/DiscoUpdates.pdf

https://www.pepperadams.com/Chronology/EarlyYears.pdf

https://www.pepperadams.com/Chronology/ByrdAdamsQuintet.pdf

https://www.pepperadams.com/Chronology/Journeyman.pdf 

March and April Madness

 

March slipped away without a blog post and this one is late.

I had started a new day job in late February that was a

distraction, and now I’m involved in a move. Packing is no

fun at any age, but especially this time around.

No news yet on the release date for Pepper Adams:

Saxophone Trailblazer. Fall is still the projected date. Again,

it’s the abridged paperback version of

Reflectory: The Life and Music of Pepper Adams,but devoid of music links and many photographs. Reflectory

will remain in print, is likely $5 cheaper, and far more

authoritative. The music links are incredible! 250 solos you’ve

never heard!

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

The Pepper Adams Archive is now available for study at William

Paterson University. It’s becoming more likely that the last two

deliveries of my Adams stuff will get there by summer. Most of it,

still sitting at my sister-in laws, includes Adams’s charts for his

Charles Mingus tribute date for Motown, numerous photos, and

various ephemera.

The February 26 Adams panel discussion was a tremendous

success. It should be posted at pepperadams.com in a few weeks.

The delay is due to our opening speaker, Paul Tynan, who had

Zoom issues when demonstrating on trumpet Pepper’s licks and

phrases. Once he repairs his music examples, you’ll be delighted

with the new ground that he and all the participants broke. Here’s

the roster: 

Paul Tynan: “Clarion Calls” (1959)

Joseph Trahan: “‘Tis” (1958)

Ben Sidran: “Little Rootie Tootie” (1959)

Aaron Lington: “Each Time I Think of You” (1961)

Andrew Hadro: “Incarnation” (1963)

John Vana: "Azure-Te" (1963)

Logan Ivancik: “Once Around” (1966)

Frank Basile: “Currents/Pollen” (1973) and “Wind from the Indies” (1977)

Adam Schroeder: “Three and One” (1975)

Courtney Wright: “It Could Happen to You” (1980)

Noah Pettibon: “Three Little Words” (1981)

Pepper Adams Paperback and Zoom Panel

 

I’m thrilled to report that my paperback version of Reflectory,entitled Pepper Adams: Saxophone Trailblazer, is now submitted in final form to Excelsior Editions. It took

about two solid weeks of intense work to finish the index,

after another two similar weeks close-reading the manuscript.

“Jimmy Health”? That’s one typo that for so long snuck under

the radar but is now fixed.

William Paterson University has cataloged my and Pepper’s

materials, and they are now available for study. Another box of

tapes and videos will be sent sometime this year from my

webmaster. And a large load of five or so large boxes of scores

and ephemera still sit in Atlanta. I’m not sure how they will make

it to Wayne, New Jersey, but I’ll drive it there in 2024 at the latest.

Disappointingly, Worcester Polytechnic University has yet to

digitize my interviews with Adams. They’ve had them for three

years, but no news yet on when they will be available at their

website.

Now that my Pepper Adams work has come to a close after 38

years, I’m free for hire to do other jazz projects. I just finished

writing liner notes for Paul Tynan and Aaron Lington’s forthcoming

recording Bicoastal Collective, Volume 6.

To keep Reflectory current, I’ve convened another Pepper Adams

Zoom panel. On February 26, the following will discuss Adams

solos. It will be posted on YouTube and at pepperadams.com

sometime in March:

Paul Tynan: “Clarion Calls” (1959)

Ben Sidran: “Little Rootie Tootie” (1959)

Aaron Lington: “Each Time I Think of You” (1961)

Andrew Hadro: “Incarnation” (1963)

John Vana: "Azure-Te" (1963)

Logan Ivancik: “Once Around” (1966)

Frank Basile: “Currents/Pollen” (1973) and 

     “Wind from the Indies” (1977)

Adam Schroeder: “Three and One” (1975)

Kenny Berger: “Reflectory” (1978)

Kevin Goss: "My Shining Hour" (1980)

Courtney Wright: “It Could Happen to You” (1980)

Noah Pettibon: “Three Little Words” (1981)

Lastly, check out this new discovery: Pepper Adams in Rome with

Franco D’Andrea’s trio, January 20, 1979:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr70HvIbexQ