Baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams had a long, fruitful career, recording extensively as a leader and appearing on roughly 600 records as a sideman. Along the way, he played gigs all over the world, with the vast majority now lost to time. Live at Room at the Top is an exception. Featuring Adams with the Tommy Banks Trio; that’s Banks on piano, Bobby Cairns on electric bass, and Tom Doran on drums, the contents were captured on the top floor of the University of Alberta student union building in Canada on September 25, 1972. Documenting hard-bop at a high level in an era when it was supposedly in decline, it’s out now on 2LP (for Record Store Day) and 2CD from the Reel to Real label.
Folks with a casual interest in jazz might not register the name Pepper Adams. The most famed baritone player in jazz probably remains Gerry Mulligan. There’s an good chance that fans of Duke Ellington will be familiar with Harry Carney, while lovers of avant-jazz might know Hamiet Bluiett. If the names Cecil Payne, Serge Chaloff, and Charles Fowlkes ring bells of recognition, it’s safe to say that the individual hearing them is more than a casual jazz fan.
However, anybody familiar with Charles Mingus’ Blues & Roots has heard Adams, as he delivers an amazing spotlight-solo on that album’s “Moanin’.” That record, which makes the list of Mingus’ masterpieces, also serves as a fine introduction to Adams, as does 10 to 4 at the 5 Spot by Adams’ quintet, recorded in 1958, a sorta dry run for the co-led quintet with trumpeter Donald Byrd, who’s in the group on 5 Spot with pianist Bobby Timmons, bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Elvin Jones.
But Adams was such a reliable player that pretty much any record he’s part of shines a positive light on his artistry (this is conjecture, of course; there are 600 of them). And this is indeed the case with Live at Room at the Top, even as it stands more than slightly apart from the norm for live albums, having been recorded as part of a radio broadcast and then essentially lost until tenor saxophonist Cory Weeds tracked down the tapes for release on his Reel to Real archival label (home to albums by Cannonball Adderley, Etta Jones, Roy Brooks, etc.), a side label Weeds’ Cellar Live imprint.