Pepper Adams, Baritone Sax - "Cotton Tail" & "Straight, No Chaser" - Live in Montreal, 20 June 1967

Audio clip and text: Courtesy of Gary Carner,
http://www.PepperAdams.com

"Pepper Adams was invited to Montreal by bassist Charlie Biddle to play with his rhythm section from 16-20 June 1967. In addition to the gig (possibly at Black Bottom), the quintet also had a scheduled performance at the U.S. Pavilion of Expo '67. The quintet played at least five tunes on 20 June at Expo, and, fortunately, CBC Radio was on hand to record the group. From the CBC broadcast, the ensemble's exciting renditions of "Cotton Tail" and "Straight, No Chaser" are included here for posterity."
"An excerpted version of Duke Ellington's "Cotton Tail" features Adams' spectacular, six-minute solo: A textbook case for saxophone students, with many of Adams' licks, formulas, and patterns on display, flowing from chorus to chorus, all in perfect balance. On the quintet's up-tempo run-through of Thelonious Monk's "Straight, No Chaser", Adams is in herculean form, stretching out for 33 choruses--its length, intensity, and scope reminiscent of Paul Gonsalves' famous 1956 Newport Jazz Festival solo on Dimuendo and Crescendo in Blue."
"This performance of "Straight, No Chaser" is the only known recording of Adams' brilliant, very dramatic blues arrangement in which, after the opening theme statement, he plays two choruses a half-step away from the tonic, over a pedal point, resolving back to the original key as a launching pad for his solo. Beginning a blues solo, with this kind of polytonal approach for a few choruses to drive tension, is the same thing Adams did on his very first solo with the Stan Kenton band in 1956. According to Adams, it took the band three weeks before they realized that he really knew what he was doing, and before he got another solo."
"Supporting Adams on this historic broadcast is the hard-driving Montreal-based rhythm section of Sadik Hakim piano; Nelson Symonds guitar; Charlie Biddle bass; Clayton Johnston drums."