Cannonball Adderry

Cannonball Adderley's Mercury albums (most of which, like this LP, are long out-of-print) find the youthful altoist trying to unsuccessfully keep his quintet with brother Nat together. Despite the powerful bop-oriented music they consistently recorded, the band would break up in a year, only to regroup with great success in 1959…

One of the great alto saxophonists to emerge from the hard bop era, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley possessed an exuberant, bright tone that communicated directly and emotionally. With live audiences, his intelligent banter about the music's presentation, combined with wry humor, made him popular.

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.

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…

Digitally remastered edition of this 1975 album by the Jazz great. In what would turn out to be the final years of his short life, jazz great Julian "Cannonball" Adderley embarked on a number of ambitious, genre-stretching projects. The last of these was 1975's Big Man, the score for a musical play based on the John Henry ("the steel driving man") American folk legend. The album was released as a two-LP set with libretto, and featured music from Adderley and his then-current musical associates including brother Nat Adderley, George Duke (using the alias "Dawilli Gonga"), Roy McCurdy, Airto Moreira, Carol Kaye and others. The sessions also made full use of a large string section and chorus, while the primary vocalists in Big Man sang and read their lines in character; the vocal cast included lead vocalist Joe Williams, Randy Crawford, and Robert Guillaume. Long out of print and never before issued on CD, Real Gone Music's reissue of Big Man boasts liner notes by Bill Kopp with quotes from Robert Guillaume, and the full libretto, with remastering by Joe Tarantino. The final artistic statement from a jazz giant!

The "Poll-Winners" at the time of this recording were Adderley, guitarist Wes Montgomery and bassist Ray Brown; together with Victor Feldman doubling on piano and vibes and drummer Louis Hayes they cut this excellent quintet date. This was the only meeting on records by Adderley and Montgomery and, although not quite a classic encounter, the music (highlighted by "The Chant," "Never Will I Marry" and two takes of "Au Privave") swings hard and is quite enjoyable.

This LP (whose contents have been reissued many times) features the Miles Davis Sextet of 1959 without the leader. Altoist Cannonball Adderley and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane really push each other on these six selections, with this version of "Limehouse Blues" really burning. Coltrane's very serious sound is a striking contrast to the jubilant Adderley alto; the latter is showcased on "Stars Fell on Alabama." With pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb playing up to their usual level, this gem is highly recommended.

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…