Cannonball Adderley With Bill Evans

Everybody Digs Bill Evans was a landmark recording for the young pianist and sported a unique album cover, featuring written-out endorsements from Miles Davis, George Shearing, Ahmad Jamal, and Cannonball Adderley. At a time approximate to when Evans was performing with the famous Kind of Blue band of Davis, Adderley, and John Coltrane, and actually departing the band, Evans continued to play the trio music he was ultimately best known for. With the unmatched pair of former Miles Davis drummer Philly Joe Jones and bassist Sam Jones (no relation), Evans was emerging not only as an ultra-sensitive player, but as an interpreter of standards second to none…

The legend of Bill Evans really begins with this album, his second. The pianist had just spent most of 1958 as part of one of the major units in jazz history: the Miles Davis Sextet that also featured John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. His fellow musicians already knew his worth (the album title was almost literally accurate, and the four endorsements on the cover, which embarrassed Bill, could easily have been greatly multiplied); with this record, the jazz public began to follow their lead. Aided by Sam Jones and Philly Joe Jones, Evans set down some of his most swinging trio sides, but the session would be memorable if it had only yielded the remarkable and haunting solo improvisation called "Peace Piece."

When this album was recorded in February of 1961, it had been more than year since the Portrait in Jazz was issued, the disc that won the critics over. By the time of this issue, Evans had released four albums in six years, a pace unheard of during that time. Most musicians were issuing two, three, and even four records a year during the same era. Many speculate on Evans' personal problems at the time, but the truth of the matter lies in the recordings themselves, and Explorations proves that the artist was worth waiting for no matter what else was going on out there. Evans, with Paul Motian and Scott LaFaro, was onto something as a trio, exploring the undersides of melodic and rhythmic constructions that had never been considered by most…

The great alto sax player Julian "Cannonball" Adderley and his cornet player brother Nat first recorded together for Savoy in 1955. And it is those "Summer of '55" sessions that form the basis of this double cd collection.
The Adderley Brothers went on to produce the massively popular jazz hits "Mercy Mery" and "World Song" plus classic albums such as "Nippon Soul". "Cannonball" Adderley developed a considerable career as an alto player in his own right, and his abilities as a player are quite clearly demonstrated on this double cd of mid-fifties recordings. He later went on to record albums under his own name with the pianist Bill Evans and of course "Kind of Blue". This Miles Davis album now ranks as the best selling jazz album of all time, and "Cannonball's" contribution to its success is legendary…