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Peter's story was shared on King 5 Evening. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

Peter Adams is on a kidney transplant waitlist but continues to record, perform and teach kids how to play piano.

PUYALLUP, Wash. — For South Sound jazz artist Peter Adams, music isn’t just his passion - it's what keeps him going.

"I think I like the improvisational nature and the community nature of (jazz),” Adams said. "It's like a language you can speak together without having to say anything."

He’s performing, composing and recording albums despite a medical condition that would understandably cause many people to slow down: Adams has no kidneys.

Three hours a day, four days a week, he self-administers dialysis from a room in his home.

"I've been through a lot already - this was definitely one of the more difficult things I've been through,” Adams said.

Adams has never known a day without health struggles.

He was born with a birth defect called cloacal exstrophy and doctors weren't sure he'd survive the rare condition, which included damaged kidneys and an under-developed foot he chose to have amputated.

"By the time I was 6, I'd had 40 surgeries or something,” Adams said.

But he also defied medical expectations - from playing tee-ball, to learning music by ear.

"I've always had that attitude of, if you tell me I can't, I'll go and do it,” Adams said, laughing.

Piano was his instrument and despite being into heavy metal as a teenager, jazz is what ultimately clicked.

"You're kind of living in the moment, you know?” Adams said. "I've never had the ability in my life to really plan super far ahead, because I never really know what's going to come next. Because it's just been one thing after another. Jazz kind of works with that.”

He and his band Velocity recorded three albums, and when Adams wasn't performing, he was teaching kids as a piano instructor.

"It's been great. I've probably taught over 200, 300 kids over the course of years,” Adams said. "The amount of joy that kids can have through music, how much joy it brings them. And self-confidence, too. I think music teaches a lot of other life lessons besides just working on music."

But in 2020, Peter faced another huge setback: a cancer diagnosis.

Like always, he found ways to keep moving forward. He taught classes over Zoom and remotely recorded a fourth album, “Refuge,” even while he was undergoing treatment.

"Some of the tracks, I literally had a pump in me while I was recording,” Adams said.

Chemotherapy lead to remission - but it also caused the final decline for his kidneys. Doctors removed them and he's been on the waiting list for a transplant since 2021.

And yet?

Adams keeps going.

He’s recording a new Christmas album with Velocity at David Lange Studios in Edgewood, and is still teaching. He simply refuses to give up.

"Living with a disability, it doesn't make me less able to do anything, you just have to find different ways to do it,” Adams said. "Everybody has something to contribute to the world, you know? And no matter what you're going through or how hard life is, you're of value and you can contribute something great to the world if you have the right attitude and you stay positive with everything."

Peter Adams' life is one of complicated rhythms. But he believes, that makes the best kind of music.

“I think I'm very blessed, I wouldn't change it,” Adams said.

Friends started a Go Fund Me to help raise money for Adams to get a living donor transplant.

Author: Kim Holcomb

Published: 7:30 PM PDT July 6, 2023

Updated: 7:44 PM PDT July 6, 2023