The Life and Music of Pepper Adams?

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

I've been reading Halsey Stevens' The Life and Music of Bela Bartok (revised, 1964). I've had a paperback copy in my library for over twenty years. Its cover price is $4.50. Remember that? That's when a gallon of gas in the U.S. was 25 cents. 

What I especially like about the book is the way it's organized. The first section is a 100 page biography, followed by a 200 page section about Bartok's music. The second part is subdivided into seven chapters: Piano Music, Vocal Music, Chamber Music (2 parts), Concertos, Orchestral Music, Dramatic Music. I'm seriously considering doing my second Pepper book this way. For one thing it places far greater emphasis on Pepper's place as an original soloist, influential stylist and fine composer. It also allows those who want to read the bio separately to do so. A shorter biography allows me to get it done much sooner and a section on Pepper's music lets me cover in great detail his extraordinary achievements. 

How should I segment the second section? Maybe by dividing his recordings up as I have in the pepperadams.com Chronology and in Pepper Adams' Joy Road?: Early Years, Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet, Journeyman, Thad, International Soloist? That might work. I'd also add separate sections on his compositions and arrangements. I could even discuss his commercial work: all those overdubs he did for CTI, Atlantic, etc. from around 1968-1975. 

Then again maybe a more thematic approach might be better? I could do separate discussions of his dates as a leader, his work with big bands (Kenton, Shorty Rogers, Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones, Duke Pearson, Dizzy Gillespie, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis), his small group work, his dates as featured soloist, and so forth including commercial work, compositions/arrangements, etc.

As for the biography, the plan was always to zig-zag thematically, using fictional devices such as flashbacks, flash-forwards, etc. Pepper hated cliches so why treat his life in a trite manner?

I remember telling Martin Williams in the late 1980s--who first contracted the biography for publication by the Smithsonian Institution in 1990--that I liked Steven's approach. It seems I've come full circle! I welcome your suggestions on what you think I should do.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: Pepper Adams in the U.S. Army

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

This Monday is Memorial Day, a national holiday that commemorates those who sacrificed their lives in the service of their country. It seems an appropriate time to take a look at Pepper Adams' time in the U.S. Army. I'd spend more time with it now but I'm taking the weekend off. I'll take up the topic soon. Until then, here's two things: An overview of Pepper's Army experience as seen in the Chronology section of pepperadams.com (but with new upates) and an Amazon.com description of a memoir written by an Army buddy of Pepper's:

1951
July 12: Detroit: Adams enlists in the U.S. Army. He was hoping to fail the induction physical and be found unfit for service.
cJuly 15: Waynesville MO: Basic Training at Ft. Leonard Wood.
July-Aug: Pontiac MI: While on "Terminal Leave," Adams goes to Thad Jones' parent's house for a jam session, soon after meeting Thad for the first time. Adams and Jones spend some additional time together during the last days of Adams' leave.
cSept 1: Waynesville MO: Five months with the 6th Armored Division Band at Ft. Leonard Wood. Bill Evans and Tommy Flanagan were both at the post in other units.
1952
Feb: Waynesville MO: Adams organizes a Special Services band at Ft. Leonard Wood for future performances in Korea.
Spring: Waynesville MO: Adams receives an emergency furlough from Ft. Leonard Wood as a ruse, engineered by Charlie Parker (posing as Adams' mother's doctor), so that Adams could visit Parker in Kansas City. When Adams learns that Parker is missing from his gig, Adams sees a movie, stays at the Y, then returns to the base the following day.
July: Ann Arbor MI: Hugh Jackson private recording with Bu Bu Turner, et al. Adams possibly on 'Terminal Leave.'
July-Aug: Pontiac MI: Jam session at Thad Jones' house while on leave.
cOct 10: San Francisco: Adams is shipped off to Korea, by way of Ft. Lott in Seattle and Camp Drake near Tokyo, with the 10th Special Services Company.
cOct 29: Asaka, Japan: Adams is stationed at Camp Drake, awaiting re-assignment in Korea.
cNov 15: Korea: Adams first performance in the Eighth Army's 10th Special Services band.
1953
Apr 5: near Kunsan, Korea: Tommy Flanagan trio, plus altoist Jerry Lehmeier, recorded very possibly by Pepper Adams (who was in the audience). Recorded on Easter, presumably at Base K-8.
Apr 12: near Kunsan, Korea: Tommy Flanagan trio, plus altoist Jerry Lehmeier, recorded very possibly by Pepper Adams (who was in the audience). Recorded at Base K-8.
May 17: Pusan, Korea: Adams boards the Marine Phoenix troopship for his return home.
cMay 23: Pacific Ocean: Adams performs, on alto, for returning troops, in a quintet with Doc Holladay.
cJune 2: Seattle: Arrives at Ft. Lott.
June 5: Detroit: Receives honorable release from active duty.
June 6: Ft. Custer MI: Files discharge papers and is transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve.

From amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1935089455/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
"In this memoir, Alvin Gould recounts his experiences serving in the United States military during the Korean War. Gould spent nearly a year of his three year tour of duty as an accordionist in the 2nd Platoon of the 10th Special Services Company, an all-soldier entertainment unit made up of professional and celebrity musicians, comedians, magicians, and other entertainers. His unit broke all previous records, zigzagging over 7000 miles across South Korea and playing over 250 shows for military personnel and other UN troops. Gould completed his military service giving accordion lessons to a Colonel, working as a mail clerk in the 8th Army Headquarters in Seoul, and finally managing a service club as sergeant in charge at Fort Gordon, Georgia. In Boots on the Ground with Music in my Hands, Gould looks back at his service in the military fondly, sharing stories of family, friendship, and war."

The Day the Earth Stood Still for Thad and Mel (Part 2)

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

I found my file for the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra's catastrophic first tour of Japan. There's three documents in it. First is a Local 802 American Federation of Musicians (New York) union contract, signed by Pepper Adams and dated 19 October 1967. The contract specifies an ambitious "series of concerts in Japan" to run from 3 December 1967 through 3 January 1968. The wage agreed upon is "$3,200 for entire engagement" and payment was to be made "at beginning and conclusion of engagement." The contract is co-signed by Keiko Okuya (the maiden name of Elvin Jones' future wife) who was representing Elvin Promotion Co. of 21-25 Hashiguchi-Machi, Nagasaki City, Nagasaki, Japan.

Pepper's contract lists Pepper as the leader so this is likely a tour Keiko tried to organize as a way of getting him to Japan to perform with Elvin. It's moot because the tour never took place but here's a summary of Keiko's corresponding itinerary nonetheless:

Dec 1: Tokyo: 7:35 pm arrival at Haneda Airport.

Dec 2: Tokyo: 1pm hotel interview.

Dec 3: Tokyo: Concert.

Dec 4: Off day.

Dec 5: Nagoya: Concert.

Dec 6: Off day.

Dec 7: Kyoto: Concert.

Dec 8: Off day.

Dec 9: Osaka: Concert.

Dec 10: Kobe: Concert.

Dec 11: Off day.

Dec 12: Hiroshima: Concert.

Dec 13: Off day.

Dec 14: Fukuoka: Concert.

Dec 15: Fukuoka: Charity show.

Dec 16: Fukuoka: Charity show.

Dec 17: Nagasaki: Concert.

Dec 18: possibly Nagasaki: Charity Sign show.

Dec 19: Tokyo: Concert.

Dec 20: Off day.

Dec 21: Sendai: Concert.

Dec 22: Northeastern Provinces: Charity show.

Dec 23: Northeastern Provinces: Charity show.

Dec 24: Aomori: Concert.

Dec 25: Off day.

Dec 26: Sapporo: Concert.

Dec 27: Off day.

Dec 28: Obihiro: Concert.

Dec 29: Off day.

Dec 30: Muroran: Concert.

Dec 31: Off day.

Jan 1: Off day.

Jan 2: Tokyo: Concert.

Jan 3: Tokyo: Concert.

Jan 4: possibly Seattle: Return to the U.S.

Jan 5: New York: Homecoming.

Keiko's far less ambitious second itinerary in my file was organized for 1968. Here's a summary of that document:

July 5: Tokyo: Arrival at Haneda Airport.

July 6: Tokyo: 2pm interview at hotel.

July 7: Tokyo: Concert.

July 8: Nagoya: Concert.

July 9: Nagoya: Concert.

July 10: Kobe: Concert.

July 11: Fukuoka: Concert.

July 12: Off day.

July 13: Tokyo: Concert.

July 14: Sapporo: Concert.

July 15: Sendai: Concert.

July 16: Tokyo: Concert.

July 17: Off day.

July 18: Return to the U.S.

Keiko's second itinerary was likely a first draft of Thad-Mel's Japanese tour. Unfortunately, it doesn't list the band or leader names, nor contain lodging or gig information as Jerry Dodgion said was distributed in advance of the trip. Plus, the dates above (5-18 July) were ultimately changed to 11-22 July for the actual tour.

I called Dodgion back today for clarification about K. Abe's role. It seemed possible that Abe went back to Japan with the band. Dodgion told me that, although Abe visited New York occasionally, he resided at that time in Japan. The bank that Abe, Keiko, Thad and Mel visited (see earlier post) was in Tokyo, not New York. That's why all conversation was in Japanese and Keiko needed to translate for Thad and Mel.

A few faxed copies of photographs taken by K. Abe were also in my file. Abe faxed them to me in 1990. One photo is of four-fifths of the Thad-Mel reed section (Adams, Daniels, Richardson, Dodgion), dated "July 21, '68, Tokyo."

Thad or Not Thad?: That Is the Question

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

Writing about the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra recently has gotten me thinking about the arrangers other than Thad who wrote for the band during Pepper Adams' tenure (1966-1977). My curiosity was piqued by the interview I did a few weeks ago with Jerry Dodgion. He told me that Joe Farrell didn't begin work on his arrangement of Lover Man--written as a tenor saxophone feature for him with the band--until after the orchestra played its first gig at the Village Vanguard on 7 February 1966.

Other than Farrell, the earliest arrangers for Thad-Mel (other than Thad) were Bob Brookmeyer, Tom McIntosh and Garnett Brown. Bob Friedman and Bob Brookmeyer also wrote some of the vocal charts for the first Joe Williams date on Solid State. In the 1970s Frank Foster, Jerry Dodgion and Cecil Bridgewater wrote for the band. You can read about Bridgewater's work in Pepper Adams' Joy Road (page 303).

Here's a roster of arrangements that Thad-Mel bandmembers wrote for the band to perform during Pepper's tenure. Let me know if I missed any:

ABC Blues    Bob Brookmeyer

Ambiance    Jery Dodgion

Bachafillen      Garnett Brown

Balanced Scales = Justice    Tom McIntosh

Cecilia Is Love    Frank Foster

Giant Steps   Frank Foster

Little B's Poem   Cecil Bridgewater

Love and Harmony  Cecil Bridgewater

Lover Man   Joe Farrell

Now That She's Away   Frank Foster

The Oregon Grinder   Jerry Dodgion

Samba con Getchu  Bob Brookmeyer

Sophisticated Lady   Garnett Brown   

St. Louis Blues   Bob Brookmeyer

Willow Weep for Me    Bob Brookmeyer

Willow Tree  Bob Brookmeyer

Apart from charts specifically written for the band, Thad Jones recorded a Gary McFarland chart (Toledo by Candlelight) and performed the Neal Hefti arrangement of Pensive Miss (or did Thad redo it?) 

That reminds me of tunes Thad arranged and adapted for the big band but didn't write, such as A--That's Freedom (Hank Jones), The Jive Samba (Nat Adderley), The Groove Merchant (Jerome Richardson), Intimacy of the Blues (Billy Strayhorn), Imagine (John Lennon), Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing and Living for the City (Stevie Wonder), Ambiance (Marian McPartland), And I Love You So (Don McLean), I Love You  (Cole Porter), The Theme from "Hawaii" (David and Bernstein), For the Love of Money (Gamble and Huff) and dare I say possibly A Child Is Born (Roland Hanna)? I'd like to hear more from the readership on this one! Additionally, there's forty or so vocal features, such as Come Sunday (Duke Ellington), Jump for Joy (Duke Ellington) and Roll 'em Pete (Pete Johnson) as heard on live broadcasts, on the first Joe Williams recording and the Ruth Brown date.

Does anyone know the derivation of these tunes that Thad-Mel performed? Who arranged them?: Two Ways On, Trying Times, Ceora (Lee Morgan's tune?), After Paris and But a Feeling. I noticed these titles in my Pepper book.

Did Thad write everything specifically for the band or did some of his arrangements carry over from charts written earlier? I exchanged another set of emails about this with saxophonist David Demsey, Curator of the Thad Jones Archive at William Paterson University. Demsey kindly shared with me his notes he used for a recent talk he did about Thad Jones at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. Although I wasn't in attendance, Demsey gave I'm sure a fascinating presentation about the full breadth of Thad's work: from his Detroit roots before he joined Count Basie in 1954 to his work overseas after the Thad-Mel divorce when he "left Mel Lewis with the kids." Demsey's notes include some terrific insights about Thad's small group work and what Jones appropriated from it for his big band charts.

Demsey also discussed "The Big Seven," those charts that Thad had written prior to the formation of Thad-Mel. Those tunes--All My Yesterdays, A--That's Freedom, Backbone, Big Dipper, Low Down, Little Pixie and The Second Race--are presumably the collection of charts that Count Basie commissioned Thad to write in 1964 for an all-Thad Basie LP. That LP was never recorded because Basie rejected Thad's work in its entirety. Can anyone confirm this, these tunes and the general circumstances? As the Chinese say, "In crisis comes opportunity." Basie allowed Thad to use the arrangements, Thad-Mel was formed and the rest is history.

By the end of the first month's worth of Thad-Mel gigs at the Vanguard, Tiptoe, Three and One, Once Around, Lover Man, Don't Ever Leave Me, Mean What You Say and Mornin' Reverend had been added to the book. Mornin' Reverend and Mean What You Say, however, were rehearsed in time for opening night at the Vanguard (7 February). Can we deduce that the following ten tunes--the seven Basie rejects, two news things that Thad wrote for the band, and one Brookmeyer chart--comprised the very beginning Thad Jones-Mel Lewis book? These would be the charts that were refined and polished over a 10-week period begining on Thanksgiving Day Weekend, 1965 at A&R Recording Studios and culminating on opening night at the Vanguard. Tapes of these rehearsals have not been found:

All My Yesterdays

A--That's Freedom

Backbone

Big Dipper

The Little Pixie

Low Down

Mean What You Say

Mornin' Reverend

The Second Race

Willow Weep for Me

All ten were written and arranged by Thad Jones with the obvious exception of Willow Weep for Me (arranged by Bob Brookmeyer) and A--That's Freedom (arranged by Thad Jones, written by Hank Jones).

As an aside, David Demsey shared with me the following:

"I wanted to be sure you knew that Rob DuBoff of eJazzLines discovered no less than 13 Thad charts, written in and around 1963 for Harry James. Turns out James was a big Basie fan and he put Thad on retainer for a chart per month, along with Neal Hefti and I believe Frank Foster. A lot of the newly found Thad charts were never recorded. Most notable historically are earlier versions of Three and One and Tiptoe -- both shorter and less composed out.  Three and One's melody in this version is assigned to guitar and piano. Quite amazing!"

This is the same period of time that Harry James offered Pepper Adams a $10,000 salary if he would join James' band and stay for a full year. At the time the James band was based in Las Vegas and Pepper was touring with Lionel Hampton's band, a situation Pepper disliked. $10,000 was a lot of money back then but Pepper turned down James' offer because he felt James' band was too commercial. I wonder if the Thad Jones/Harry James connection was something that James used to entice Pepper?

Lost in Translation: A New Review of Pepper Adams' Joy Road

© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

Below is David Demsey's review of my Pepper book for the e-magazine Saxophone Today. He originally wrote it some time ago for Saxophone Journal but the magazine went through a reorganization and the piece was orphaned for a while.

Gary Carner, Pepper Adams’ Joy Road: An Annotated Discography [Scarecrow Press, $57.95].  Recommended for: jazz fans and teachers, libraries.

This is, on the surface, a book-sized discography, a listing of all known recordings of the great baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams. But, the academic-sounding “discography” category does not adequately describe the exhaustive work that author Gary Carner has done to tell the story of Adams’ life in what amounts to a gig-by-gig, session-by-session biography.

Park “Pepper” Adams, one of the greatest jazz baritone saxophone voices since bebop, grew up in Detroit and there had instruction from Wardell Gray, undertook early collaborations with fellow Detroiters Barry Harris, Billy Mitchell, then in the bands of Lucky Thompson and others.  By his late twenties, he was a member of the house band at the famous Blue Bird jazz club, and there became close musical associates with one of the great “royal families” of jazz: Thad, Elvin and Hank Jones. He worked endless gigs with them, in their own band as well as accompanying major soloists as they came through town. Later, he became a member of Stan Kenton’s band and with Benny Goodman, and co-led groups with Donald Byrd and others. Perhaps his most well-known association was with Thad Jones, as a member of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra from its inception through 1977, and also recording in small groups with Thad, including the historic “Mean What You Say” LP.   Baseball fans will love the fact that Adams got his nickname from St. Louis Cardinals Gashouse Gang ballplayer Pepper Martin because of his uncanny physical resemblance to Martin as a kid.

Author Carner spent decades devoting his life’s work to gathering information on every performance recording that existed on Adams – not just his many studio sessions, but also hundreds of live performance tapes. With discographical precision, each of these concerts and recording sessions is painstakingly chronicled in terms of exact date, personnel, and pieces recorded. But, what makes this book into a virtual biography is the number of interviews with other members of those ensembles that accompany many entries, often discussing not only that particular date but also other anecdotes and aspects of membership in that group, including tour details, stories of other sessions and engagements that were not recorded, etc. There are interviews with nearly every surviving member of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, and with dozens upon dozens of other musicians, record producers and concertgoers.

The reader’s first reaction to this book is to seek out some of Adams’ wonderful compositions, and recordings of these gigs; Carner has done that work as well, with the same energy that created the book, through his beautifully assembled website, www.pepperadams.com.  This first-rate site can act as a companion to this book. For example, the “Compositions” section shows a complete list of Adams’ compositions; clicking on each composition brings up audio of each of the recordings of that composition, and passing the arrow over the entry shows the album cover.

Also now available is The Complete Works of Pepper Adams, Volumes 1-5, recorded by contemporary artists including Gary Smulyan, Frank Basile, Eric Alexander, Alexis Cole and others.

All information and a huge Pepper Adams resource:

http://www.pepperadams.com

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Pepper-Adams-Joy-Road-Discography/dp/0810882566