Baritone saxist Pepper Adams had a full career as a sideman for an innumerable collection of artists such as Charles Mingus and Herbie Hancock, as well as leading his own hot little quintet with Donald Byrd back in the 1960s. Though largely forgotten these days, he was THE hard bop bar saxist for a long time, mixing a warm tone with a dexterity and warmth that was unrivalled. Even MORE overlooked was his compositional skills, and this is where jazz historian Gary Carner steps in. He’s assembled a collection of jazz artists to put forth a 51 track, 5 cd set (available digitally), a single cd sampler, and a single disc that comes from that set makes up the 5th volume, which is completely vocals delivered by Alexis Cole.
Wisely, the music on this anthology does not try to replicate the exact sound and arrangements that Pepper initially recorded. Oh, you do have Gary Smulyan and Frank Basile on the big horn for various songs, and they sound marvelous, but ther are also tunes without any reeds at all. A hot little piano trio with Jeremy Kahn/p, Rod Amster/b and George Fludas supports the horns, but does quite well on it’s own as on “Doctor Deep,” and guitarist Barry Greene joins in for a lovely waltz of “Claudette’s Way.” A full horn section is felt on the highly hip “Binary” while a quintet fills the room with warm tones on the ballad “In Love With Night.”
Cole lends one of her vocals on the last song of the sampler, and her own disc is a alluring collection of lyrics by Barry Wallenstein added to yet more Pepper spices with a band that includes the double tenor sax lead of Eric Alexander and Pat LaBarbera. A take of “Julian” has the band going through a few choruses before Cole arrives at almost the halfway mark, showing that the music, and not the vocalist, is the center of attention. The melding of the horns is a wise choice, shown to its on the upbeat version of “I Carry Your Heart,” while Cole’s alluring voice is palpable on the intimate closing version. A real find!
Motema Music
www.motema.com