Showing posts with label Blue Note. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blue Note. Show all posts

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Pepper Adams Biography News











© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.






A belated happy New Year to everybody! My apologies to those who have been awaiting a post from me. Yes, I've been away from the blog for some time. My life has been a little chaotic job-wise, though things have sorted themselves out recently.
I'm very pleased to announce that the first half of my Pepper Adams biography is now finished. I completed it a few days ago. It's about 100 pages. I began writing around the middle of April, 2017, upon my return from lecturing at four colleges in Utah. Looking back, I'm still amazed how I got all this done in eleven months. It sure helps to have 34 years of notes! During the next four weeks I'll be editing the manuscript, and going over my Pepper Adams interview transcript and listening to about 25 interviews, just to be sure I don't leave any important things out.

Here's an overview (finding aid) of Part I, what I call "Ascent":

Ch. 1:
Charlie Parker at the Mirror Ballroom
Move to Detroit, Rochester NY vs. Detroit
Skippy Williams
Arrival in Detroit, race relations
Detroit in the 1950s
History of Detroit, 1700-1900
History of Detroit, 1900-1950
Grinnell's
Lionel Hampton
Wayne University
The Music Box, Little John and His Merrymen
Getting the Berg Larsen and Selmer, Detroit's baritone history, Beans Bowles

Ch. 2:
Pepper's father in Detroit
Paternal genealogy
Family's musical roots
History of Rochester
Early life in Indiana, move to Rochester
Age 4-9, father's death
War years
Rochester musicians during World War II
Age 10-12, Everett Gates
Duke Ellington at the Temple Theatre, Rex Stewart, trip to Seattle
Ellington, Skippy Williams, classical music
Importance of elders (especially Rex Stewart), Duke Ellington
Raymond Murphy, Bob Wilber
John Huggler
Isolation
The Elite
John Albert

Ch. 3:
Service in the U.S. Army, Korean War
The Blue Bird Inn
The World Stage
The West End Hotel, Klein's Show Bar
Detroit's jazz history
Thad Jones, Wardell Gray, baritone players on the scene
Obscure Detroit jazz musicians
Pepper's personality, Detroit pianists
Maternal genealogy
Detroit musical education
Detroit's outlier jazz generation, Malcolm Gladwell outlier concepts related to Pepper
Pepper demo played for Prestige and Blue Note, Pepper sits in with Miles and Rollins
Stan Getz story, Pepper moves to New York City

I met with my trusted webmaster, Dan Olson, last week. We're planning important upgrades this year to pepperadams.com. New context will be added to "Radio Interviews" and "Big Band Performances." A link to a new WikiTree genealogy of Pepper Adams is planned.
I had to wipe clean the hard drive on my iPad a few months ago. By doing so, I lost my trusty app for Blogspot. If anyone has a recommendation for an app I can use that DOES NOT ask for my Google password, please let me know. It will help me format future posts.
I did submit my first section from Ch. 3 about Pepper's experience in the U.S. Army for publication in 2019. I'll let you know if it's approved. I'm

Sunday, December 4, 2016

The Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet (1958-61)





© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.


Here's the piece I contributed to the Heaven Was Detroit anthology. It can also be found at pepperadams.com. The book version added one paragraph about Donald Byrd's early history, probably for the sake of balance. Otherwise, it's the same piece. I offer it here to give more exposure to this great and undervalued quintet.


Although they seldom performed together in Detroit as teenagers, trumpeter Donald Byrd and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams established an enduring musical partnership in their late twenties that coalesced a few years after both had moved to New York City. Their first New York gig was probably at the Cafe Bohemia in early February, 1958. Later that month, they were paired as the front line for a Thelonious Monk studio recording, just as they began a residency at the Five Spot that lasted until June. Already in demand as a dynamic front-line duo, their four-month run (with Detroiters Doug Watkins and Elvin Jones) gave them the opportunity to launch the Byrd-Adams Quintet as a working group. Riverside Records recorded them live in April. Six months later the band would record Off to the Races, its first of a series of recordings for Blue Note Records that cemented the band’s place in jazz history.

In the Summer of 1958, however, directly after the lengthy Five Spot engagement, Donald Byrd toured Europe with Watkins and Belgian tenor saxophonist Bobby Jaspar. Adams, for his part, accepted a six-week engagement with Benny Goodman. Again, in early 1959 the Byrd-Adams Quintet would be shelved in favor of Byrd and Adams’ four-month commitment to the Thelonious Monk Big Band (culminating with the influential Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall date for Riverside). This on-again/off-again schedule would characterize the early history of the Quintet, from mid-1958 well into 1960. Because steady work wasn’t available for the group’s first two-and-a-half years as a unit, Byrd and Adams continued to take gigs as sidemen while also maintaining active careers as solo artists.

From 1958-1961, Byrd and Adams were busy indeed, working and recording in many settings. Besides their membership in Monk’s orchestra in early 1959, Adams did two tours with Benny Goodman and another with Chet Baker before May, 1959, when the Byrd-Adams Quintet recorded Byrd in Hand, their second date for Blue Note. By then the Quintet had already worked two weeks at New York’s Village Vanguard. In October, 1959 the band was touring again, this time playing gigs in Toronto and Pittsburgh.

In the Spring of 1960 the Byrd-Adams Quintet (including Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones) recorded three tunes for a stereophonic sampler project for Warwick Records. Before that, Byrd without Adams had worked his way from New York to San Francisco and back while Adams formed a short-lived quintet with tenor saxophonist J.R. Monterose. But by July, 1960 the Quintet’s superb rhythm section of Duke Pearson, Laymon Jackson and Lex Humphries had coalesced. And with Adams back in the group, the Quintet began its incarnation as a steadily working ensemble. A three month tour took the band to Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City and Pittsburgh, then back to Chicago and Detroit before returning to New York in late October.

During the group’s two-month stint in Chicago (that would extend into January, 1961), pianist Herbie Hancock was hired to replace Duke Pearson. This was Hancock’s first gig outside of Chicago with a touring band. Hancock moved from Chicago to New York to join the group.

Back in New York, the Quintet recorded again for Warwick, then toured for most of the year before disbanding in October. In February and March, 1961 the group gigged throughout the Eastern United States and Canada, working at the New Showboat in Philadelphia, then Montreal and Toronto and back to the Bird House in Chicago before working in Indianapolis and Rochester, New York. Returning to New York in April, the group recorded two more dates for Blue Note (Chant and The Cat Walk) within a two week period

Looking back at the group’s history, there seems to be a direct relationship between the amount of recordings the Byrd-Adams duo made and the frequency of Quintet gigs. Stated another way, the more recordings Byrd-Adams made, the more they created demand for their Quintet to be heard live in performance. Their first recording, 10 to 4 at the Five Spot, released in mid-1958, was followed by the release of the Quintet’s first two Blue Note recordings in 1959, Off to the Races and Byrd in Hand. Those were followed in turn by a double-LP recorded in November, 1960 (Live at the Half Note) and five studio sessions (Motor City Scene, Out of This World, Chant, The Cat Walk and Royal Flush) all recorded before October, 1961. This upward arc of activity in the studios was equally true for their dense club-date calendar. Band itineraries, magazine articles and advertisements in the jazz and lay press all demonstrate that 1960 and 1961 were, indeed, the glory days for the working quintet, when the band was performing regularly and functioning at its peak. This is the main reason why I find the Quintet’s cluster of six recordings made in less than a year’s time to be their finest work. Working steadily for only a year also explains why the Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet remains to this day not nearly as well-known as some of other similarly constituted great small bands of its time, such as those led by Max Roach, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Horace Silver or Cannonball Adderley.

What other conclusions can we make about the Quintet’s three early recordings leading up to their great body of work done in late 1960 and 1961? First, it’s clear that Byrd and Adams favored Detroit musicians in their group whenever possible. The live 1958 Riverside date, for example, was an all-Detroit group except for pianist Bobby Timmons, though I suspect they tried to hire Tommy Flanagan.

For their second and third dates—the Quintet’s first two for Blue Note—commercial pressures dictated that Byrd, as leader, feature some of the musicians in Blue Note’s stable. It also necessitated expanding the front line to three horns. These all-star sessions would soon be phased out in favor of showcasing the working Quintet. That’s because the group started touring steadily in mid-1960, congealing as a unit, and attracting attention as a unique band with its own sound.

Two other things that characterize the Quintet’s recordings is their inclusion of original compositions and the use of the ballad feature. Both Byrd and pianist Duke Pearson used these recording dates as opportunities to write original tunes and arrangements for small group. The ballad feature—a convention of jazz performance, and something Byrd would’ve been asked to perform as a member of Art Blakey’s band a la trumpeter Clifford Brown—is something Byrd and Adams would always do in club dates and also on several of their recordings. They used ballads as solo features for either Byrd or Adams, typically undergirded by the rhythm section, and as a way to affect variety within each set of music. Additionally, having one of the horn players drop out on a slow-tempo number was sensible in another way. It would by necessity abbreviate the duration of the tune and not unduly disrupt the set’s momentum.

Taking the entire sweep of their work into consideration, it’s clear to me that Byrd’s exclusive recording contract with Blue Note catalyzed the Byrd-Adams Quintet. Their increasing popularity, due to the wide distribution and overall excellence of their first two Blue Note recordings, also led to them eventually being picked up by the Shaw Agency, who booked tours for the group throughout North America.

Fortuitously, too, a brief lapse in Byrd’s Blue Note contract allowed Byrd and Adams the opportunity to fit in two additional recording dates. One, Out of This World for Warwick, was for the working group. The other, Motor City Scene (under Adams’ leadership for Bethlehem), was for sextet, with the addition of Detroiter Kenny Burrell on guitar. 

                (Pepper Adams and Donald Byrd at the Half Note, 11 November 1960)

For all their recordings, steady work on the road, and critical acclaim, the Shaw Agency’s predilection for booking the Quintet on very long road trips still spelled disaster for the band. Exhausting car rides (Minneapolis to Dallas, Salt Lake City, Denver, then Detroit, for example) were already booked by Shaw in October, 1960. In July and August, 1961 the group was back at it, driving from New York to Cleveland, then St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago and Detroit, leading up to Royal Flush, their last New York studio date in September. In October the band returned to St. Louis, then played Kansas City, where the club folded and the group wasn’t paid. Years later Adams cited transportation costs relative to what they were earning as the main reason for ending the four year collaboration. But the Kansas City experience must have functioned as a telling metaphor and as an embodiment of the group’s pent-up frustrations. It was the Quintet’s final gig.

Despite their all-too brief time together, three outstanding recordings were made in the late 1950s and six superb dates were made in a ten-month stretch beginning on November 11, 1960 with the Blue Note double-LP Live at the Half Note. The Half Note date is the only Quintet recording to have never gone out of print in the U.S., some measure of its enduring value. From it, Duke Pearson’s composition “Jeanine” is the Quintet’s only tune that has became a standard in the jazz repertoire. Live at the Half Note reveals the band at the height of its power and remains the best example of what the band sounded like at the time.

Just after the Half Note recording, the Quintet, in a burst of activity, recorded four more dates in New York. First was the Bethlehem session, led by Adams, that returned to the favored all-Detroit formula (with Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers and Louis Hayes). A January date for Warwick, Out of This World, featured the working group, now with young Herbie Hancock on his very first record session, but with drummer Jimmy Cobb in place of Lex Humphries. In April and early May, the Quintet’s two Blue Note studio dates used other drummers entirely: Philly Joe Jones on The Cat Walk, because they couldn’t locate Humphries, and Teddy Robinson on Chant because he was already touring with the band at the time. One final Quintet date, Royal Flush, was done in September, 1961. It’s just as excellent as the others. It features Byrd, Adams and Hancock, with bassist Butch Warren and drummer Billy Higgins.

Summing up the totality of the band’s output, what is it about this group that made it unique? First and foremost, of course, the Quintet featured two great instrumental stylists backed by a terrific, interactive, hard-swinging rhythm section. Their repertoire was fresh and compelling, comprised of a blend of unusual standards, interesting originals, and cleverly adapted tunes, such as an uptempo version of “I’m an Old Cowhand” or Henry Mancini’s “Theme from Mr. Lucky.”

Sonically, trumpet with baritone sax is an exquisite pairing, even more aurally spread than the customary trumpet/tenor sax pairing of its time. A trumpet/baritone front line was still rather unusual in 1958, especially one playing this brand of intense post-Charlie Parker small group jazz. But, more than that, Byrd and Adams meshed so well because their styles were so complementary. Byrd, at root, was a very melodic, soulful, lyrical player who used nuance, space and blues inflections in his solos. Adams did too, though he was more of a rhapsodic player, who delighted in double-time playing and exhibiting other technical flourishes. Byrd, it could be said, was more of a “horizontal” soloist, Adams more “vertical.” What a perfect counterbalance! And when Byrd and Adams stated each tune’s theme, their phrasing—often using impressive dynamics or provocative counterpoint lines—was always so beautifully rendered.

All told, during the four year stretch that reached its apotheosis in 1960-61, the Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet recorded eleven dates—seven studio albums, one sampler, and three live LPs—assuring their place as one of the great jazz groups of its time. The band launched the career of Herbie Hancock and it gave Byrd, Duke Pearson and, to a lesser extent, Adams and Hancock, a forum to write original compositions. Some of the tunes in their book (“Curro’s,” “Bird House” and “Jorgie’s”) immortalized jazz clubs. The Quintet surely helped Adams’ career too. He was heard widely in clubs throughout North America and the Blue Note dates in particular were well distributed in the U.S. and abroad during his lifetime.

Discography/Filmography

With the exception of Live at the Half Note, all of the Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet’s Blue Note recordings have been collected in a Mosaic Records box set. 10 to 4 at the Five Spot and Motor City Scene have been reissued on CD. Out of This World has been reissued on CD too, but beware of cannibalized recordings from bootlegs that cut and paste some of the tunes almost beyond recognition. Most of the Quintet sessions were under Byrd’s name because Blue Note’s contract was with him. The dates on other labels fall under Pepper Adams’ leadership or Adams-Byrd. 

No film or videotape footage of the Byrd-Adams Quintet has been uncovered as yet but a terrific clip from the 1958 Cannes Jazz Festival, featuring the Bobby Jaspar-Donald Byrd Quintet is listed below. Each member of that rhythm section (Walter Davis Jr., Doug Watkins and Arthur Taylor) recorded with the Byrd-Adams Quintet on Blue Note.  

Pepper Adams, Motor City Scene, Bethlehem BCP-6056.
____________, 10 to 4 at the 5 Spot, Original Jazz Classics CD: OJCCD-031-2.
Pepper Adams-Donald Byrd, Out of This World, Fresh Sound CD: FSR-335.
Donald Byrd, At the Half Note Cafe (Vol. 1), Blue Note CD: CDP-7-46539-2.
____________, At the Half Note Cafe (Vol. 2), Blue Note CD: CDP-7-46540-2.                                        
Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams, The Complete Blue Note Donald Byrd/Pepper Adams Studio Sessions, Mosaic CD: CDBN-7-46540-2. 
Bobby Jaspar-Donald Byrd, INA videotape (France), http://youtu.be/XEwuLs5hCRE.
Thelonious Monk, Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall, Original Jazz Classics CD: OJCCD-135-2.

Compositions

Who wrote all those great tunes for the Byrd-Adams Quintet? I always knew Donald Byrd wrote a bunch and that Duke Pearson wrote a few. When I began assessing their repertoire I was surprised to see the degree to which Byrd’s writing dominated the amount of original material written for 1958-61 band. 33 original compositions were written to perform during that period. Of that, 70% of the oeuvre was written by Donald Byrd or (in the case of “Each Time I Think of You”) co-written by Byrd and Duke Pearson.

Nine of the tunes were written by various pianists in the band: Walter Davis Jr., Duke Pearson and Herbie Hancock. Pepper Adams wrote his two compositions for Motor City Scene, the 1960 Bethlehem date under his leadership. It seems doubtful that either of Adams’ tunes were ever played by the Quintet in club dates. Herbie Hancock’s first recorded composition, “Requiem,” can be heard on Royal Flush, the Quintet’s last studio date while still a touring band.

“Jeannine,”* written by Duke Pearson, was recorded by Cannonball Adderley about six months before the November, 1960 Live at the Half Note date. Although not written for the Byrd-Adams Quintet, it’s included below, albeit an outlier, because Byrd-Adams helped make the tune part of the standard jazz repertoire. That’s in part due to the fact that their seminal Blue Note recording never went out of print in the U.S.

What about the rest of the book? Judging from the data, 28 other tunes were either recorded or performed in clubs. A few of these tunes were standards but most were tunes that few performed. Even some of the standards were modified in creative ways, such as the ballad “That’s All” and the novelty number “I’m an Old Cowhand” being made into uptempo flag-wavers. See the Byrd-Adams repertoire list below.

Pepper Adams:
Libeccio
Philson

Donald Byrd:
Amen
Bird House
The Cat Walk
Cecile
Devil Whip
Down Tempo
Curro’s
Great God
Here Am I
Hush
The Injuns
Jorgie’s
Kimyas
The Long Two/Four (= Off to the Races)
Pure D. Funk
Shangri-La
6M’s
Soulful Kiddy
Sudwest Funk
When Your Love Has Gone
Yourna
You’re Next
Yourna

Donald Byrd-Duke Pearson:
Each Time I Think of You

Walter Davis Jr.:
Bronze Dance
Clarion Calls

Herbie Hancock:
Requiem

Duke Pearson:
Chant
Child's Play
Duke’s Mixture
Hello Bright Sunflower
Jeannine*
My Girl Shirl
Say You’re Mine

Other Tunes Recorded and Performed by Byrd-Adams:
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Harold Arlen)
Bitty Ditty (Thad Jones)
Cute (Neal Hefti)
Day Dream (Billy Strayhorn)
Hastings Street Bounce (traditional)
I’m a Fool to Want You (Jack Wolf-Joel Herron-Frank Sinatra)
I’m an Old Cowhand (Johnny Mercer)
I Remember Clifford (Benny Golson)
It’s a Beautiful Evening (Raymond Rasch)
Like Someone in Love (Jimmy Van Heusen)
Little Girl Blue (Richard Rodgers)
Lover Come Back to Me (Richard Rodgers)
Mr. Lucky (Henry Mancini)
One More for the Road (Harold Arlen) 
Out of This World (Harold Arlen)
Paul’s Pal (Sonny Rollins)
A Portrait of Jennie (J. Russel Robinson)
Sophisticated Lady (Duke Ellington)
Stardust (Hoagy Carmichael)
Stuffy (Coleman Hawkins)
That’s All (Bob Haymes-Alan Brandt)
’Tis (Thad Jones)
Trio (Errol Garner)
When Sunny Gets Blue (Marvin Fisher-Jack Segal)
You’re My Thrill (Jay Gorney)
Witchcraft (Cy Coleman)

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Two as One: New Prologue to Pepper Adams Biography



© Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

OK, everybody. I've rewritten and reformulated the Prologue since last week, pulling together two pieces about Pepper. The first is Pepper in crisis and its aftermath. The second is how I met Pepper and what it was like for me. I encourage you to please let me know if you think this is a good opening to the book. I'll take your suggestions to heart, thanks.


Prologue

In the Summer of 1977 Pepper Adams was at a crossroads. For twelve years he had anchored the reed section of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, one of jazz’s greatest big bands, but at age 46 desperately needed to reinvent himself. Adams never wanted to be in the group in the first place. After too many years of accepting section work with big bands, he was eager to break free and work exclusively with small ensembles so he could stretch as a soloist. But Thad Jones—one of his dearest friends, whom he admired more than anyone—needed him in his newly formed orchestra, leaned on him, reminded him of all the things his mother did for him back in Pontiac, Michigan in the old days and convinced him to stay. That was in 1966. Now, after hundreds of Monday nights at the Village Vanguard and countless tours of the U.S., Europe and Japan, Adams was more restive than ever. 
Pepper had voiced his frustration at least a year prior to the ’77 summer tour. He told Thad and Mel that he was unhappy with his lack of solos, citing the baseball expression, “Play me or trade me!” as some indication of his discontentment. Pepper’s clever use of the phrase, so characteristic of his understated sense of humor, has since become part of the band’s mythology. When it was uttered, they laughed and ignored it. This time around Adams wasn’t joking.
Pepper’s situation came to a head in Stockholm at the midpoint of the band’s two-month European tour. Before their August 1 evening performance at Tivoli Gardens, Adams met privately with  Jones and Lewis. He told them that he wanted a pay raise and star billing as a featured soloist. Adams, though, was unaware that it was band policy to never give inordinate solo space, nor pay any musician, more than anyone else. Even if he had known, Pepper still would’ve felt entitled to it because of his tenure and longstanding friendship with both of them. Nevertheless, much to his Pepper’s surprise, Thad and Mel turned down his request, steadfastly adhering to band protocol. An aggrieved Pepper Adams, left with no alternative, said he’d be leaving the band at the end of the month when the tour concluded. The news of Pepper’s imminent departure saddened everyone in the band, but none more than Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. That night at Tivoli, Adams again had no solos to play. Adams had sublimated his feelings by getting so drunk before the gig that he could barely comport himself onstage.
Adams’ close friend Ron Ley traveled with the orchestra part of the way through Scandinavia that summer and witnessed Pepper’s sad turn of events. A day or so after Adams submitted his resignation, Ley and Thad Jones had a moment alone. Jones reminded Ley that Pepper was jazz’s greatest living baritone saxophonist. Later on, said Ley, “Mel shared Thad’s opinion of Pepper’s playing and added that his opinion was shared by all fellow musicians of the period. It may have been that Thad and Mel made a point of telling me this because they knew that Pepper and I were close, and wanted to express their feelings so that I wouldn’t be left with an impression that they were indifferent to Pepper’s feelings of disappointment.”
After the tour concluded, Adams returned to New York and began forging his identity as an itinerant soloist. Although it was a courageous decision for Adams to go out on his own after twelve years with the band, it was extraordinarily propitious both for him and jazz history. Adams already possessed an international reputation based on more than twenty years of commercial recordings with many of the greatest musicians, including Phil Woods, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Elvin Jones, Stan Kenton, Chet Baker, Duke Pearson, Kenny Clarke, Donald Byrd, Jimmy Heath, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Benny Goodman, Andre Previn, Paul Chambers, Chick Corea, David Amram, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and so many others. In no time he found himself in demand throughout Europe and North America. Then, in 1978 and 1980 Adams recorded two of his greatest albums, Reflectory and The Master, featuring his original compositions. Both were nominated for Grammy Awards as the best instrumental albums of the year by a jazz soloist. Building a book of originals he could perform had finally pushed him to put his mind to composition. Between 1977 and 1983 Adams wrote nearly half his oeuvre of 42 tunes. 
At last, success was coming his way from all directions. His 1979 project with singer Helen Merrill, Chasin’ the Bird/Gershwin, was nominated for a Grammy Award (his third in three years) as the best jazz recording of the year by a vocalist. He received yet another Grammy nomination for his 1983 album Live at Fat Tuesday’s and, clad in a tuxedo, Adams appeared on the 1982 nationally broadcast Grammy Awards telecast, performing (appropriately enough) the jazz standard “My Shining Hour.” Adams was working steadily, winning all the readers and critics polls as the world’s best baritone saxophonist and had the ongoing support of a record company. A younger generation of musicians was seeking him out for their gigs and, due to numerous radio and television appearances, the public was becoming familiar with this soft-spoken gentle man who let his big horn and bigger sound speak for him.
Then, like a sand castle at high tide, it all washed away. With so much forward momentum propelling him, in December, 1983 Adams had a bizarre car accident that forced him to cancel seven months of work, including a week at Lush Life, his first high-profile New York City club date in years. His marriage, already on shaky ground, ended during his convalescence, then lung cancer was discovered half a year later, leaving him with only eighteen months to live. 
Adams’ life can be measured by a long, slowly ascending arc of success that increased logarithmically once he left the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. Without a doubt, his first six years as a traveling soloist were triumphant—a time when he burnished his legacy as a virtuoso performer and composer—making his dramatic three-year fall that much more lamentable. Nevertheless, Adams had a rich, influential 40-year musical career. Consider for a moment the most notable jazz musicians of Adams’ post-Charlie Parker generation. How many bonafide stylists are there among them who are instantaneously identifiable on their instrument and have had a profound effect on the art form? John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Wes Montgomery spring to mind. Clifford Brown? Cannonball Adderley and Phineas Newborn perhaps? Equally noteworthy in his own way is Pepper Adams, the father of modern baritone sax playing. Just like Wes, Trane and the others on their instruments, Pepper’s unique sound and innovative melodic and harmonic concept, just as surely as his dazzling technical mastery, have shaped all baritone saxophonists to follow. This book is an attempt to contextualize Pepper Adams’ accomplishments and reveal the man who revolutionized the baritone saxophone and forever changed music.

*

On September 28, 1986, our first wedding anniversary, my wife and I attended Pepper Adams’ memorial service at St. Peter’s Church. Adams had waged a courageous battle against an aggressive form of lung cancer that was first diagnosed in early March, 1985 while touring in northern Sweden. St. Peter’s, with its modern ash-paneled interior and large multi-tiered sanctuary, is tucked under the enormous 915-foot-tall Citicorp Center at East 54th Street and Lexington Avenue. On that somber but bright Sunday afternoon, St. Peter’s chapel was packed with musicians, friends and admirers. Reverend John Garcia Gensel presided over the service and many jazz greats—Tommy Flanagan, Elvin Jones, Frank Foster, George Mraz, Roland Hanna, Barry Harris, Louis Hayes, Sheila Jordan, Gerry Mulligan and others—performed and paid their final respects. 
For over a year Adams’ plight had galvanized the jazz community, who heard varying stories about his wife leaving him, his declining health and his dire financial situation. Between September, 1985 and March, 1986 two benefits were organized to raise funds for Pepper’s medical care. One at the 880 Club in Hartford, Connecticut was organized by alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and Adams was able to attend. The other took place at the Universal Jazz Coalition on Lafayette Street in New York and featured performances by Milt Jackson, Louis Hayes, Frank Foster, Dizzy Gillespie, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, Jerry Dodgion and the entire Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Pepper, gaunt and bald from chemotherapy treatments, was out of town for that one, working a weekend gig in Memphis. He sent a letter of gratitude that was read to the audience by singer Lodi Carr.
At Pepper’s memorial service it seemed ironic that this brilliant musician’s musician, so admired by his peers, was receiving such a fond farewell. He had fans, I was sure, but you’d never know it by the indifference he received from the jazz press, the few gigs he did in New York or the small audiences I was fortunate to be a part of near the end of his life. While his predicament likely drew more attention to him than previously, I had the impression that an accreted, long overdue realization of Adams’ musical accomplishments had finally coalesced in the public’s mind. How strange it was that, at his death, it felt like his ascendant hour.
  Pepper Adams was a friend of mine, but, sadly, I knew him only during the last two tumultuous years of his life. During that time, only partly recovered from a horrible leg accident that had kept him immobilized 22 hours a day for six months, Adams was separated from his wife and had been diagnosed with the cancer that would in short order kill him. Although it was an utterly miserable time for him, it was a fascinating and complex ride for me. I was a 28-year-old grad student; a passionate jazz fan and record collector who was trying to interest a jazz musician just enough to work with me on their memoir. As fate would have it, because of his leg injury Pepper had some time on his hands. He was so gracious, so prepared, so articulate and engaging. I felt honored to work with him. 
Then, seven months later his cancer was diagnosed. I visited him at St. Luke’s Hospital when he started his medical treatments. I saw him perform whenever he had a gig around New York. On one occasion, between sets at the Blue Note, I saw him bark at a pianist whom he misperceived was harassing him for a gig. Another time, in New Jersey, I heard the pain pour out of him during a magnificent ballad performance that brought me to tears. I spent time with Pepper at his home in Canarsie, eating pizza, watching football games and dubbing copies of his tapes. Although I was trying to gather as much information as I could in the little time that was left, I always had to reign in my curiosity and not push too hard. Things had changed drastically since the summer and I had to make the shift with him. Mostly, I had to respect that he was fighting for his life and that the cancer treatments made him feel awful. It was simply inappropriate to think that every time we got together Pepper would feel like analyzing aspects of his life. Instead, I did what any friend would do. I tried to help out whenever possible.
In January, 1986, Pepper worked a four-night stint in bitterly cold Minneapolis. I urged a friend of mine to attend as some show of support. During intermission Dan Olson said hello for me, bought Pepper a beer and the two had a chance to talk at the bar. Afterwards, Dan told me that my gesture meant a lot to Pepper, that he was obviously quite fond of me. That’s when I started to learn how much Pepper valued our work together. My final experience with Pepper was equally poignant. A month before his death, bedridden at home and under the care of a hospice nurse, I called to see if there was anything I could do. His nurse asked me to hold. I waited anxiously for at least five minutes while Pepper somehow found the energy to drag himself to the telephone. In a sentence or two he acknowledged that time was short, thanked me for calling, said a final goodbye and hung up the phone. That would’ve been in August, 1986, right around the time that Dizzy Gillespie called him to say that Thad Jones had died in Copenhagen.
About a year later, once I began interviewing Adams’ colleagues, I spent a very memorable afternoon in Cambridge, Massachusetts with Tommy Flanagan. I was meeting him for the first time and I was completely starstruck. Flanagan was one of the last people to see Pepper alive. Flanagan wanted me to know that transcripts of my interviews were stacked high on Pepper’s nightstand just before he died. At one point, while sitting next to Pepper on the edge of his bed, Flanagan explained, Pepper awoke and tried feebly to push my manuscript towards him. As you can imagine, I was completely stunned by Flanagan’s story and it had a profound effect on me once I comprehended its full implications. At first I was very touched that my work possibly gave Pepper some small measure of comfort at the end of his life. Then I began to take my role a lot more seriously, knowing how important it was to Pepper for his work to carry on after him. Of course my resolve to do this book and all the other work that’s preceded it was strengthened. But, truth be told, I’ve wanted to tell Pepper’s story since June 28, 1984, the memorable day I conducted the first of several lengthy interviews with him. His recollections of his childhood and early career (see pepperadams.com) were stunning in their depth and historical sweep. I knew right away that I had something very special. 
Flanagan’s interview was one of more than 100 I conducted, mostly in the late 1980s before my daughter was born. For them, Pepper was a complex figure: a hero, an intellectual, a composer, a model of grace, a virtuoso musician and stylist, yet someone also very hard to calibrate. Their remembrances revealed a brilliant artist full of interesting ambiguities and contradictions: an unworldly looking sophisticate, a engaging raconteur in public who was emotionally guarded in private, a full-throated exuberant saxophonist who was mild-mannered and soft-spoken. What a fascinating subject! After so many years researching his life and living with his music, in 2012 I produced a five-volume box set of Adams’ complete compositions that was co-branded with my book Pepper Adams’ Joy Road: An Annotated Discography. Now, with this companion work, I at long last fulfill my promise to him and myself. 
I’m especially pleased that John Vana agreed to co-author the book. John’s an alto player on the faculty at Western Illinois University. We first met when he invited me to speak at WIU in late 2013. John’s an ardent Pepper Adams fan. Soon after my visit he agreed to write a major piece on Pepper’s early style (to 1960) for a possible Adams anthology. Not long after that, John started asking me to send him, bit by bit, every Pepper Adams LP, cassette and videotape in my collection. Clearly, listening only to Adams’ early work wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to consider Pepper’s entire oeuvre. Eventually, it occurred to me that John’s piece would likely cover much of the same terrain I’d be exploring in the second half of this book. Considering the demands of my day job, wouldn’t it be better for me to write the biography and have John (with my input, additions and editorial oversight) write the second section? I got John on the phone and he thought it was a really good idea. The anthology might not even happen, I pointed out, so what better place for his study? For those either already hip to Adams’ life and recordings or encountering him for the first time, it’s our sincere hope that we convey his extraordinary contribution to the history of Twentieth Century music and inspire readers everywhere to listen anew to his glorious work.


Saturday, November 8, 2014

The Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet (1958-61)

Gary Carner. Copyright Protected. All rights reserved.

http://instagram.com/p/r-aenRpnvf/?modal=true 

Here's the piece I wrote for Wayne State University Press. It will be published in their forthcoming anthology about Detroit's musical history. The piece is posted here: 

http://www.pepperadams.com/ByrdAdamsHistory.pdf


Although they certainly knew each other in Detroit, trumpeter Donald Byrd and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams never played together until both moved to New York City. Their first gig toas probably at the Cafe Bohemia in early February, 1958. Later that month, Byrd and Adams were paired as the front line for a Thelonious Monk studio recording, just as they began a residency at the Five Spot that lasted until June. Already in demand as a dynamic front-line duo, their four-month run (with Detroiters Doug Watkins and Elvin Jones) gave them the opportunity to launch the Byrd-Adams Quintet. Riverside Records recorded the group live in April. Six months later the band would record Off to the Races, its first of a series of recordings for Blue Note Records that cemented the band’s place in jazz history.

In the Summer of 1958, however, directly after the lengthy Five Spot engagement, Donald Byrd toured Europe with Watkins and Belgian tenor saxophonist Bobby Jaspar. Adams, for his part, accepted a six-week engagement with Benny Goodman. Again, in early 1959 the Byrd-Adams Quintet would be shelved in favor of Byrd and Adams’ four-month commitment to the Thelonious Monk Big Band (culminating with the influential Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall date for Riverside). This on-again/off-again schedule would characterize the early history of the Quintet, from mid-1958 well into 1960. Because steady work wasn’t available for the group’s first two-and-a-half years as a unit, Byrd and Adams continued to take gigs as sidemen while also maintaining active careers as solo artists.

From 1958-1961, Byrd and Adams were busy indeed, working and recording in many settings. Besides their membership in Monk’s orchestra in early 1959, Adams did two tours with Benny Goodman and another with Chet Baker before May, 1959, when the Byrd-Adams Quintet recorded Byrd in Hand, their second date for Blue Note. By then the Quintet had already worked two weeks at New York’s Village Vanguard. In October, 1959 the band was touring again, this time playing gigs in Toronto and Pittsburgh.

In the Spring of 1960 the Byrd-Adams Quintet (including Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and  Philly Joe Jones) recorded three tunes for a stereophonic sampler project for Warwick Records. Before that, Byrd without Adams had worked his way from New York to San Francisco and back while Adams formed a short-lived quintet with tenor saxophonist J.R. Monterose. But by July, 1960 the Quintet’s superb rhythm section of Duke Pearson, Laymon Jackson and Lex Humphries had coalesced. And with Adams back in the group, the Quintet began its incarnation as a steadily working ensemble. A three month tour took the band to Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City and Pittsburgh, then back to Chicago and Detroit before returning to New York in late October.

During the group’s two-month stint in Chicago (that would extend into January, 1961), pianist Herbie Hancock was hired to replace Duke Pearson. This was Hancock’s first gig outside of Chicago with a touring band. Hancock moved from Chicago to New York to join the group.

Back in New York, the Quintet recorded again for Warwick, then toured for most of the year before disbanding in October. In February and March, 1961 the group gigged throughout the Eastern United States and Canada, working at the New Showboat in Philadelphia, then Montreal and Toronto and back to the Bird House in Chicago before working in Indianapolis and Rochester, New York. Returning to New York in April, the group recorded two more dates for Blue Note (Chant and The Cat Walk) within a two week period.

Looking back at the group’s history, there seems to be a direct relationship between the amount of recordings the Byrd-Adams duo made and the frequency of Quintet gigs. Stated another way, the more recordings Byrd-Adams made, the more they created demand for their Quintet to be heard live in performance. Their first recording, 10 to 4 at the Five Spot, released in mid-1958, was followed by the release of the Quintet’s first two Blue Note recordings in 1959, Off to the Races and Byrd in Hand. Those were followed in turn by a double-LP recorded in November, 1960 (Live at the Half Note) and five studio sessions (Motor City Scene, Out of This World, Chant, The Cat Walk and Royal Flush) all recorded before October, 1961. This upward arc of activity in the studios was equally true for their dense club-date calendar. Band itineraries, magazine articles and advertisements in the jazz and lay press all demonstrate that 1960 and 1961 were, indeed, the glory days for the working quintet, when the band was performing regularly and functioning at its peak. This is the main reason why I find the Quintet’s cluster of six recordings made in less than a year’s time to be their finest work. Working steadily for only a year also explains why the Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet remains to this day not nearly as well-known as some of other similarly constituted great small bands of its time, such as those led by Max Roach, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Horace Silver or Cannonball Adderley.

What other conclusions can we make about the Quintet’s three early recordings leading up to their great body of work done in late 1960 and 1961? First, it’s clear that Byrd and Adams favored Detroit musicians in their group whenever possible. The live 1958 Riverside date, for example, was an all-Detroit group except for pianist Bobby Timmons, though I suspect they tried to hire Tommy Flanagan. 

For their second and third dates—the Quintet’s first two for Blue Note—commercial pressures dictated that Byrd, as leader, feature some of the musicians in Blue Note’s stable. It also necessitated expanding the front line to three horns. These all-star sessions would soon be phased out in favor of showcasing the working Quintet. That’s because the group started touring steadily in mid-1960, congealing as a unit, and attracting attention as a unique band with its own sound. 

Two other things that characterize the Quintet’s recordings is their inclusion of original compositions and the use of the ballad feature. Both Byrd and pianist Duke Pearson used these recording dates as opportunities to write original tunes and arrangements for small group. The ballad feature, a convention of jazz performance, and something Byrd would’ve been asked to perform as a member of Art Blakey’s band a la trumpeter Clifford Brown, is something Byrd and Adams would always do in club dates and on several of their recordings. They used ballads as solo features for either Byrd or Adams, typically undergirded by the rhythm section, and as a way to affect variety within each set of music. Additionally, having one of the horn players drop out on a slow-tempo number was sensible in another way. It would by necessity abbreviate the duration of the tune and not unduly disrupt the set’s momentum.

In retrospect, there’s no question that Byrd’s exclusive recording contract with Blue Note catalyzed the Byrd-Adams Quintet. Their increasing popularity, due to the wide distribution and overall excellence of their first two Blue Note recordings, also led to them eventually being picked up by the Shaw Agency, who booked tours for the group throughout North America. 

Fortuitously, too, a brief lapse in Byrd’s Blue Note contract allowed Byrd and Adams the opportunity to fit in two additional recording dates. One, Out of This World for Warwick, was for the working group. The other, Motor City Scene (under Adams’ leadership for Bethlehem), was for sextet, with the addition of Detroiter Kenny Burrell on guitar. 

Listen to Bitty Ditty here: http://youtu.be/Y23YPy-8o7c 

Despite all their recordings, steady work on the road, and critical acclaim, the Shaw Agency’s predilection for booking the Quintet on very long road trips spelled disaster for the band. Exhausting car rides (Minneapolis to Dallas, Salt Lake City, Denver, then Detroit, for example) were already booked by Shaw in October, 1960. In July and August, 1961 the group was back at it, driving from New York to Cleveland, then St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago and Detroit, leading up to Royal Flush, their last New York studio date in September. In October the band returned to St. Louis, then played Kansas City, where the club folded and the group wasn’t paid. Years later Adams cited transportation costs relative to what they were earning as the main reason for ending the four year collaboration. But the Kansas City experience must have functioned as a telling metaphor and as an embodiment of the group’s pent-up frustrations. It was the Quintet’s final gig.

Despite their all-too brief time together, three outstanding recordings were made in the late 1950s and six superb dates were made in a ten-month stretch beginning on November 11, 1960 with the Blue Note double-LP Live at the Half Note. The Half Note date is the only Quintet recording to have never gone out of print in the U.S., some measure of its enduring value. From it, Duke Pearson’s composition “Jeanine” is the Quintet’s only tune that has became a standard in the jazz repertoire. Live at the Half Note reveals the band at the height of its power and remains the best example of what the band sounded like at the time. 

Listen to Jeannine here: http://youtu.be/bovferybdb8 

Just after the Half Note recording, the Quintet, in a burst of activity, recorded four more dates in New York. First was the Bethlehem session, led by Adams, that returned to the favored all-Detroit formula (with Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers and Louis Hayes). A January date for Warwick, Out of This World, featured the working group, now with young Herbie Hancock on his very first record session, but with drummer Jimmy Cobb in place of Lex Humphries. In April and early May, the Quintet’s two Blue Note studio dates used other drummers entirely: Philly Joe Jones on The Cat Walk, because they couldn’t locate Humphries, and Teddy Robinson on Chant because he was already touring with the band at the time. One final Quintet date, Royal Flush, was done in September, 1961. It’s just as excellent as the others. It features Byrd, Adams and Hancock, with bassist Butch Warren and drummer Billy Higgins.

Summing up the totality of band’s output, what is it about this group that made it unique? First and foremost, of course, the Quintet featured two great instrumental stylists backed by a terrific, interactive, hard-swinging rhythm section. Their repertoire was fresh and compelling, comprised of a blend of unusual standards, interesting originals, and cleverly adapted tunes, such as an uptempo version of “I’m an Old Cowhand” or Henry Mancini’s “Theme from Mr. Lucky.”

Listen to Im an Old Cowhand here: http://youtu.be/Z6Pa9XdmY4c 

Sonically, trumpet with baritone sax is an exquisite pairing, even more aurally spread than the customary trumpet/tenor sax pairing of its time. A trumpet/baritone front line was still rather unusual in 1958, especially one playing this brand of intense post-Charlie Parker small group jazz. But, more than that, Byrd and Adams meshed so well because their styles were so complementary. Byrd, at root, was a very melodic, soulful, lyrical player who used nuance, space and blues inflections in his solos. Adams did too, though he was more of a rhapsodic player, who delighted in double-time playing and exhibiting other technical flourishes. Byrd, it could be said, was more of a “horizontal” soloist, Adams more “vertical.” What a perfect counterbalance! And when Byrd and Adams stated each tune’s theme, their phrasing—often using impressive dynamics or provocative counterpoint lines—was always so beautifully rendered.

All told, during the four year stretch that reached its quintessence in 1960-61, the Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet recorded eleven dates—seven studio albums, one sampler, and three live LPs—assuring their place as one of the great jazz groups of its time. The band launched the career of Herbie Hancock and it gave Byrd, Duke Pearson and, to a lesser extent, Adams and Hancock, a forum to write original compositions. Some of the tunes in their book (“Curro’s,” “Bird House” and “Jorgie’s”) immortalized jazz clubs. The Quintet surely helped Adams’ career too. He was heard widely in clubs throughout North America and the Blue Note dates in particular were well distributed in the U.S. and abroad during his lifetime.

Discography/Filmography
With the exception of Live at the Half Note, all of the Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet’s Blue Note recordings have been collected in a Mosaic Records box set. 10 to 4 at the Five Spot and Motor City Scene have been reissued on CD. Out of This World has been reissued on CD too, but beware of cannibalized recordings from bootlegs that cut and paste some of the tunes almost beyond recognition. Most of the Quintet sessions were under Byrd’s name because Blue Note’s contract was with him. The dates on other labels fall under Pepper Adams’ leadership or Adams-Byrd. 

No film or videotape footage of the Byrd-Adams Quintet has been uncovered as yet but a terrific clip from the 1958 Cannes Jazz Festival, featuring the Bobby Jaspar-Donald Byrd Quintet is listed below. Each member of that rhythm section (Walter Davis Jr., Doug Watkins and Arthur Taylor) recorded with the Byrd-Adams Quintet on Blue Note.  

Pepper Adams, Motor City Scene, Bethlehem BCP-6056.
____________, 10 to 4 at the 5 Spot, Original Jazz Classics CD: OJCCD-031-2.
Pepper Adams-Donald Byrd, Out of This World, Fresh Sound CD: FSR-335.
Donald Byrd, At the Half Note Cafe (Vol. 1), Blue Note CD: CDP-7-46539-2.
__________, At the Half Note Cafe (Vol. 2), Blue Note CD: CDP-7-46540-2.                                        
Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams, The Complete Blue Note Donald Byrd/Pepper Adams Studio  Sessions, CD: CDBN-7-46540-2. 
Bobby Jaspar-Donald Byrd, INA videotape (France), http://youtu.be/XEwuLs5hCRE.
Thelonious Monk, Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall, Original Jazz Classics CD: OJCCD-135-2.


Gary Carner is the author of Pepper Adams’ Joy Road, The Miles Davis Companion and Jazz Performers. From 1984 until Adams’ death in 1986, Carner collaborated with Pepper Adams on his memoirs. Carner’s research on Adams’ career, collected at pepperadams.com, spans four decades. Carner blogs about Adams at gc-pepperadamsblog.blogspot.com and has also produced all 42 of Adams’ compositions for Motema Music.