Pepper Adams - Julian (Enja)

In the pantheon of baritone saxophonists, the late, great Pepper Adams holds a special position of prominence. Adams wasn’t a fraction of the composer Mulligan was, nor did he travel exotic spaceways like Pat Patrick, but when it came to bringing out the blustery best in his horn he often had his contemporaries soundly beat. A chief reason behind that edge was the determination to embrace the instrument’s gutteral bottom end and couple it with an inherent enthusiasm that was also resolutely cognizant of form and function. An Adams solo, even a riff, is rife with vitality and muscle, but also respectful of structural integrity. To cite just one specimen: my favorite passage of Mingus’ Blues and Roots involves Pepper’s garrulous prodding bleats that open the deliriously down home “Moanin’”. This Enja set, taped in a tiny club in Munich in the summer of ’75, offers a striking contrast between Adams’ physique and sound. A booklet snapshot shows him pencil-thin and balding, presumable side effects of chemo, hoisting his horn with matchstick arms. Fortunately the rugged physicality of horn remains largely intact and comes through clearly in the clean live recording. A rhythm section of Walter Norris, George Mraz and the Makaya Ntshoko help out with swinging backdrops as Adams taps a songbook made up mainly of originals and tunes borrowed from his colleague Thad Jones. The title ballad, composed jointly by the leader and Mraz in honor of Cannonball Adderley, is particularly effective with Adams blowing bold cerulean shapes against the bassist’s steady commentary and finishing off with a soaring cadenza that belies his horn’s built-in gravity. Adams recorded all too infrequently in quartet settings, a regrettable circumstance that only augments the value of this already priceless late-in-the-game outing.