Cannonball Adderley

Depending on the nature of the person involved, success either dictates more and more compulsive activity, or else it permits relaxation. With Cannonball Adderley, the latter certainly appears to be the case; and this album can, among other things, serve as a testimonial to the truth of this impression. Adderley is undeniably a successful, widely-acclaimed artist, and it may seem to some that his success came quickly. But it is more in the nature of what one night-club comic once referred to bitterly as "my overnight success after fifteen years." To recap briefly, Cannonball came up to New York in the mid-'5Os with a thorough background as a player and teacher in Florida, and soon found himself lauded, recorded, and a working bandleader.

One of the great alto saxophonists, Cannonball Adderley had an exuberant and happy sound that communicated immediately to listeners. His intelligent presentation of his music (often explaining what he and his musicians were going to play) helped make him one of the most popular of all jazzmen.

In 1963 Cannonball Adderley signed with the Capitol label, retaining the rights to some master tapes recorded earlier while he was with Riverside. This CD (a straight reissue of an earlier LP) therefore contains music much closer to the altoist's freewheeling Riverside period than to his R&Bish Capitol dates. Adderley's greatest band - his sextet with cornetist Nat Adderley, Yusef Lateef (on tenor, flute and oboe), pianist Joe Zawinul, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Louis Hayes - is featured on such exciting numbers as "Jessica's Day," Jones' "Unit 7," and "The Jive Samba." A special treat of this live date is hearing the leader's introductory words to several of the songs.

Recorded live in Tokyo on July 14th and 15th, 1963, Nippon Soul is not the Asian-jazz fusion suggested by the title (check out Cal Tjader's Several Shades of Jade and Breeze From the East for that), but a solid live set that showcases one of Cannonball Adderley's finest groups, featuring himself, brother Nat Adderley on cornet, bassist Sam Jones, drummer Louis Hayes, and most notably pianist Joe Zawinul and reedsman Yusef Lateef. Both near the beginnings of their careers, Zawinul and Lateef nonetheless dominate this set; two of the original tracks are by Lateef, including the centerpiece "Brother John," for John Coltrane and featuring an astonishing extended Lateef solo on oboe, an instrument not normally associated with jazz, but which takes on an almost Middle Eastern fluidity and grace in its approximation of Coltrane's "sheets of sound" technique…

Cannonball Adderley gave up his own band in 1957 when he had the opportunity to become a sideman in Miles Davis' epic ensemble with John Coltrane, eventually resulting in some of the greatest jazz recordings of all time (including Milestones and Kind of Blue). Davis returned the favor in March of 1958, appearing as a sideman on Adderley's all-star quintet date for Blue Note, and the resulting session is indeed Somethin' Else. Both horn players are at their peak of lyrical invention, crafting gorgeous, flowing blues lines on the title tune and "One for Daddy-O," as the rhythm team (Hank Jones, Sam Jones, Art Blakey) creates a taut, focused groove (pianist Hank Jones' sly, intuitive orchestrations are studies of harmonic understatement).

A plethora of "lost" recording dates have popped up since the dawn of the compact disc, especially in the jazz world. Unfortunately, most of them haven't been worth the wait and, indeed, as underwhelming as some of them have been, it might - at least aesthetically speaking - have been better had they not been unearthed. Happily, this isn't one of these occasions. The two sessions here were recorded in 1961 and 1962 in Chicago and New York, and feature Cannonball Adderley's quintet that included pianist Joe Zawinul, bassist Sam Jones, drummer Louis Hayes, and brother Nat on cornet. Cleanhead sings his ass off and plays some alto with Cannonball. These dates reveal an anomaly in jazz at the time: The recordings are the place on the map where jazz and R&B meet head on, bringing the full force of their respective traditions and neither giving an inch…

The ’60s would continue to be Cannonball Adderley’s most fruitful period, recording no fewer than 28 albums under his own name by the end of the decade…

This CD presents the complete original album "Cannonball's Bossa Nova," which was Cannonball Adderleys contribution to the bossa nova craze that pervaded the United States in the early 1960s. For this special occasion, he wasnt backed by his usual group, but by an authentic bossa nova formation featuring celebrated Brazilian musicians, like pianist Sergio Mendes, future Weather Report percussionist Dom Um Romao, and guitarist Durval Ferreira.
Two alternate versions from the same sessions, as well as the saxophonists earliest existing recording of his brother Nat Adderleys The Jive Samba taped by Cannonballs regular group (featuring Nat) have been included as bonus tracks. The latter song would become a regular feature in the quintets repertoire. As a further bonus, a complete session featuring Cannonball (who plays solos on all tracks) and Milt Jackson.

This excellent live date from the Village Vanguard was the recording debut of the Adderley sextet, with Cannonball waxing eloquently and swingingly on alto, brother Nat charging ahead on cornet, and the versatile Yusef Lateef (who had joined the band only three weeks earlier) adding a bit of an edge on tenor, flute, and unusually for a jazz wind player, oboe on the odd, dirge-like "Syn-Anthesia." Also, this was the first recorded appearance of pianist Joe Zawinul - a little over three years since his arrival in America - in Cannonball's band. This group would be Zawinul's springboard to prominence in the jazz world, and readily apparent is how his compulsively funky mastery of bop and the blues had fused tightly with the Sam Jones/Louis Hayes rhythm section. Included is one of the earliest recordings of a Zawinul composition, "Scotch and Water," a happy, swinging blues.