April 29, 1940: George Rufus Adams of the Don Pullen/George Adams Quartet
One performance only, at NMA Miami 1988 but it got quite a long review from the St. Petersburg newspaper critic...
George Rufus Adams 1940 Covington, Georgia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Adams_(musician)
We got to see the celebrated jazz composer-performer George Adams in context with the Adams/Pullen Quartet at NMA Miami 1988. You may have missed or only glanced at the long review I found about the duo when posting it on the December 8 substack, as they performed on the same day as…
Perujazz, Relâche with Stephen Montague, Brian Johnson playing Alvin Lucier, works by Alicia Terzian and Jerry Hunt, Peter Rose in duo with David Moss, Joan La Barbara with the New World Symphony and works by Orlando Garcia, Anthony Davis and Lou Harrison, not to mention late night gigs with Yomo Toro and Vicki Richards!
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Still, it was a grand way to end the day. And today you might have a bit of more time to enjoy the following:
Don Pullen - George Adams Quartet - 2 sets
*
The tastiest treat came on the first night [of a three day weekend] when the Don Pullen/George Adams Quartet, one of the most revered small groups in jazz, played a cramped room in the Strand, a refurbished old restaurant for the terminally hip a few blocks off the beach. The room had black walls and oddly cast lighting, a mixture of art deco and psychodelia.
It held 50 people. The show was free. Inescapable conclusion: Show up early.
The Pullen/Adams group is one of the very best on the current jazz landscape at taking the music into edgy and sometimes audience-alienating areas of harsh dissonance and free improvisation, while somehow keeping it all palatable.
The foursome doesn't do it with mirrors. Rooted in tradition, the band takes the basic tenets of blues and swing and stretches them harmonically and rhythmically. Above all, the band pushes the ever-crucial ``sound of surprise`` found in good jazz to delicious heights.
On the set-closing Thank You Very Much, Mr. Monk, the quartet fiercely dug into a swinging bop-blues - and if they'd stayed in that groove and all taken their solos at appointed spots, the tune would have worked beautifully. But Pullen/Adams took the piece to another plane. After a couple of runs at the angular melody and some brief solos, suddenly the sound came tumbling down, the volume dissolved and pianist Pullen was left alone for a solo excursion. It made for the kind of odd turn not often heard in contemporary jazz.
Village Vanguard, 1985:
Pullen mixes strong modern jazz technique with the nose-thumbing sensibility of a true iconoclast. His liquid lines and pouncing attack on conventional passages are striking enough to render him a front-rank jazzer, but it's the pianist's wild side that makes him unforgettable. He savagely rolled his wrists over the keys to create manic clusters and occasionally dropped a vicious elbow on the low notes; his hard features tightened, he hunched over the keyboard as if beating it into submission.
The sound that came forth - sort of like cats were fighting on the keyboard - was exhilarating, abrasive and, strangest of all, logical. The seeming randomness of Pullen's sonic explosion possessed an inner core that made sense.
Enter saxophonist/flutist Adams, Pullen's partner and foil. He brings buoyancy and humor to counter the pianist's steely tautness. His sound is steeped in the blues. Repeatedly rolling his eyes, the moon-faced sax man blew waves of chattering notes and searing honks while his body twisted and leaned. Showing a more lyrical side, Adams also dished up one of the loveliest tenor sounds in all of jazz - full-bodied, melancholy - which he unveiled on the ballad A Time For Sobriety, giving the band a whole new dimension.
With the rock-solid and highly interactive rhythm tandem of bassist Cameron Browne and drummer Louis Nash, the band ran through an 80-minute set that flashed by in an instant. A tense moment occurred early on. Pullen stood looking disdainfully at a glass of water and barked to no one in particular, ``Can we have some mineral water? Not tap water! ... So we can continue?`` The band stood around for a couple of minutes; someone informed the players that Perrier was on the way. Pullen stood fast, glaring, determined to wait for it to show up.
Finally, Adams leaned into his microphone and said, ``This next song is called the `We're on strike 'til the mineral water comes blues.``' The audience let out a grateful chuckle and the band appropriately slid into A Time for Sobriety. Halfway through the tune, a waiter came bearing Perriers with twists and all was well.
- Eric Snider, "Making Modern Music" St. Petersburg Times, December 13, 1988