Pepper Adams, Baritone Sax - "Bye, Bye, Blackbird" (Live in Bloomfield, New Jersey, 19 Nov. 1983)

"Bye, Bye, Blackbird"

Pepper Adams -- Baritone Sax
Noreen Grey -- Piano
Earl Sauls -- Bass
Curtis Boyd -- Drums

Live recording
19 November 1983
Sealy's
Bloomfield, NJ

This audio clip and the text that follows are courtesy of Gary Carner (www.PepperAdams.com):

"As saxophonist Dale Fielder has pointed out on his Frugal Apathy blog, Pepper Adams' two greatest influences are Wardell Gray and Charlie Parker. It's from Gray, Fielder notes, that Adams got his sense of lyricism and phraseology, but it's from Parker that Pepper got much of his harmonic and melodic vocabulary and his dazzling technique."

"Adams acknowledged, in his interview with me, that Parker is the greatest player he ever heard. Yet it's still hard to overstate Wardell Gray's enduring influence on Adams. Besides Gray's gorgeous tone and unparalleled melodic gift, both emulated by Pepper, it was Gray's Berg Larsen tenor mouthpiece that Adams adopted for the baritone, and Gray was the first baritonist Pepper heard that played with precise articulation and a confident time feel. Besides being an important mentor, Wardell Gray was an especially close friend, and his shocking death in 1955 was a personal tragedy for Adams. (See "Pepper on Wardell Gray.") Gray and Parker both died at age 34, within months of each other."

"Gray's lyricism and Parker's technical bravura--the yin-yang of Pepper's solo style--and the way Adams moves effortlessly between both sensibilities, striking a balance between them, is what gives Pepper Adams solos their majesty and extraordinary beauty. A perfect example of this is his remarkable six-minute, six-chorus solo on this excerpt of "Bye, Bye Blackbird." "

"The tune begins with an 8-bar rhythm section introduction, a convention that Adams enjoyed. Pepper then states the theme in a very relaxed, behind-the-beat style that leads perfectly to his Grayesque first solo chorus. As a contrast, Chorus Two has those wonderful, tumbling, double-time lines, executed with Parkeresque intensity. Chorus Three is a mix of the polar opposites, with lots of space for the rhythm section to play fills, and with Adams using melodic paraphrase to great effect. Chorus Four is back to Wardell Gray, with lyrical melodic lines, space for the rhythm section, everything swinging very hard. Chorus Five is a beautiful melange of styles again, leading to the solo's climax in Chorus Six, where Adams finishes with a series of exciting patterns, resolving with a lovely, Grayesque concluding phrase."

" "Bye, Bye Blackbird" was recorded on November 19, 1983 at Sealy's, a discotheque in Bloomfield, New Jersey that had just started to book jazz. The piano was in bad shape, said bassist Earl Sauls, and the sound system wasn't any better. "There was hardly anybody there," Sauls remembered. "As soon as we finished playing, on went the disco lights and music!" With Sauls was Noreen Grey on piano and Curtis Boyd on drums."