Solo of the Month

Welcome Pepper Adams listeners! Here you will find a rotating selection of extraordinary and very rare performances by Pepper Adams, performed around the world, from 1967 to 1984. Just as Pepper told me about listening to Bird bootlegs, I feel that Pepper’s live dates, away from the pressures of commerce, reveal him at his most experimental, free to play with melodic and harmonic material, and especially free to stretch out and create long solos of stunning beauty. Some of his very best playing will be available here, mostly from audience tapes I’ve collected, but some from broadcasts and unissued material done in the studio. I welcome your comments on the blog. Long live Pepper Adams!

June’s recording:  

This 5 November 1978 concert was produced by Pepper’s long-time friend, pianist Keith White, who first played with Pepper at Montreal’s Little Vienna in 1960. Because of the dearth of good drummers in Montreal in 1978, Keith chose his nineteen year old son, Andre, to play the gig, along with local pianist Maury Kaye and the little known and very fine bassist Paul Dyne. Amazingly, the Museum of Fine Arts didn’t have a piano (or access to one), so Andre gave Kaye his Fender Rhodes. Keith White had a sense of posterity, so he hired a CBC sound man to record the concert. Keith also videotaped (with a rather primitive camera) part of the show, some that has been posted on YouTube. Although the rhythm section sounds almost quaint with the electric piano, Pepper was absolutely on fire that night! In the audience was Bob Sunenblick, who a few years later would start Uptown Records and sign Adams, in part because of this extraordinary performance. Adams performed nine tunes at the concert: five originals, two Thad Jones tunes, and two standards (closing with Oleo). For your listening pleasure, here’s an excerpt of Dylan’s Delight, Pepper’s dedication to his step-son.