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George Adams: Gone, But Not Forgotten
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The other day, by chance, I picked up a CD by George Adams, one of my favorite tenor players. Although he died more
than ten years ago, the music was fresh, vibrant and full of subtlety, skill and his robust and sublime sound. George
Adams was never a household name during his lifetime, and his reputation is not really gaining among newer listeners,
I don't suppose. But, like many other performers of his generation (including one of his favorite pianists, Don Pullen),
he had many skills to recommend him, and left a legacy of interesting and varied CDs.
I probably first heard George Adams with Charles Mingus, but he didn't immediately attract me in the way that Booker Ervin did,
because Booker's was the sound I identified with classic Mingus recordings of the late 1950s. Adams, a younger man who lived
20 years beyond Booker's death in 1972, was one of a handful of supremely talented players his age with the skill to play with
Mingus and Gil Evans, and the staying power to carry the torch in Mingus Dynasty and also in groups featuring himself and Don Pullen.
Clealy, playing with Mingus, however you might feel about him personally, was an honor. But Adams stayed the course, playing in Mingus-
inspired groups for the last 13 years of his life (Mingus died in 1979; Adams in 1992). While George Adams is not as well-known as he
should be (and there is no one carrying a banner for him posthumously in national jazz polls), his music both inside and outside of the
tradition has appealed to me because it is so human and honest. This month's front page (May 2002) touches on a beautiful CD entitled
"Nightingale," recorded for Blue Note in 1988 and now available only from Japan. Another representative CD he recorded in March 1991 for
Blue Note is entitled "Old Feeling." Also available from Japan, this is an edgier, funkier romp than "Nightingale", and allows Adams to
show his sense of humor (he sings on the bouncy, electrified "That Old Feeling"). Both he and trumpeter Hannibal Peterson take beautiful
solo turns on "As Time Goes By," which was enough for me to want the CD in the first place.
Mingus, Gil Evans and George Adams are dead now, but if you had to pick three people to listen to as a starter in jazz, you probably could
do a heck of a lot worse.
Do you have a favorite that no one talks about? Who is your George Adams? Drop me a line here to Jazzpot
and I'll talk about your talent deserving wider recognition, living or dead.
Dave Leonnig
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