*Cannonball Adderley Corner*

[Shawn]

Happy birthday Cannonball!

In celebration of his birthday I thought he deserved his own corner here on the board.

I'm starting my day by listening to a couple of his live sextet recordings, the incredible lineup with Lateef on board.

Let's hear it for Julian!!!

[jazzbo]

Happy birthday Julian! What a player and jazz personality! I wish we could have had him around so much longer! Wish he were here today!

Edited September 15, 2004 by jazzbo

[sal]

I was spinning "Fiddler on the Roof" yesterday. What a great album....quite underappreciated as well, it seems.

Julian was one of the great players of this music. You could always count on him for a wonderful solo. Those live recordings with Miles & Trane are the best. Especially when Cannonball solos after Trane....he really pushes it!

[skeith]

Yeah, I dig him big time. One of my all time favorite sax players.

[JSngry]

Truly a man of the people, and a man for the people. A Cannonball gig was one where everybody could hear something they liked and something they might not have heard elsewhere. He simultaneously entertained and challenged his audience with a degree of finesse that appears to be a lost art these days.

He is deeply missed.

[Shrdlu]

What a superb alto! (And that in an era of a lot of mediocre ones.) I have enjoyed many hours listening to him.

The only horn in tune on "Fran Dance"!

I am alone in thinking that his post-Riverside albums are a tad hard to get at the moment? I never did get to hear much of his work after that period, and would like to now.

[John L]

Good luck trying to fit Cannonball into a corner!

Julian Adderley was truly larger than life. As time goes by, my appreciation of him and his music just grows and grows.

[cannonball-addict]

Do I really even need to say anything?

[JSngry]

I am alone in thinking that his post-Riverside albums are a tad hard to get at the moment? I never did get to hear much of his work after that period, and would like to now.

A few of the Capitol things are currently available, http://www.bluenote.com/artistpage.asp?ArtistID=3270 but many more aren't. They're a mixed bag, to put it mildly, but there's some really good stuff there. Hopefully the reissues will continue.

Most of the Fantasy things are available as OJCs, I think. Of those INSIDE STRAIGHT is as good an album as he's made. The side whis band backing Joe Williams is a good'un too. The others are not without interest, but ain't exactly "mainstream" fare. Lots of electronics and stuff. But Ball plays great no matter what.

[Free For All]

A couple of my favorites. Great sound, incredible time. Perfect foil for Trane.

[king ubu]

I'm a huge fan of Cannonball's! He was among the first musicians I "got" when I started exploring jazz - among a pile of Cannon discs I was allowed to borrow from a friend of my parents when I was fifteen or something were the famous San Francisco Jazz Workshop disc, Nippon Soul, Something Else, the big band date on Riverside, and several of the Landmark discs (now being reissued by Blue Note).

Let's hope they'll bring us this GREAT one soon:

I do own the Landmark LP, and hell, Lateef is blowing some BAD blues on "Trouble in Mind", and the band is on fire!

Other favourites are "Them Dirty Blues," "Nippon Soul," and all of the earlier sides for Savoy, as well as the Emarcy dates I know. The Sophisticated something 2CD set is fantastic!

ubu

[kh1958]

The Best of Cannonball Adderley on Capital was my first jazz record. I listened to Work Song and others on this LP over and over again. He's one of my favorites, for sure.

[BruceH]

After owning just a couple of his albums for years and years, I finally got into Cannonball in a big way just in the last couple of years. He did so much top-drawer stuff! I'm not sure I'll ever get ALL of his good albums, but it's fun to try. For me, he's one of those artists who just get better and better the more you listen to them.

I know he passed away rather young; what was the cause?

[wesbed]

I know he passed away rather young; what was the cause?

From AMG: However, during his last year, Cannonball Adderley was revisiting the past a bit and on Phenix he recorded new versions of many of his earlier numbers. But before he could evolve his music any further, Cannonball Adderley died suddenly from a stroke.

[cannonball-addict]

Being an alto player, I was naturally hooked when I first heard the album first referred to as The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago and later reissued as Cannonball and Coltrane.

Then, a year ago, after I got started on jazz criticism, I decided to do a research paper on him since there is a lack of scholarship on him and his importance. Surely he wasn't as groundbreaking as Bird, but he did introduce a new element to the performing equation. He was a great communicator with audiences. In fact, one Downbeat article I found on microfilm from the 60s was titled "Cannonball the Communicator." He was also very socially aware and active (evidenced by his live concert with Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago at Operation Breadbasket).

In my research, I found one book that had focused solely on him and that was the exhaustive discography by British jazz scholar Chris Sheridan who also did ones on Basie and Monk and is supposedly working on another right now. The book is entitled "Dis Here: A Bio-Discography of Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley." and is published by the notoriously expensive Greenwood Press.

For more info click here.

This work is extremely expensive given its niche topic and is only found in major university libraries. I had to get it on interlibrary load from the Library of Congress because the Smithsonian, where I was researching as a guest researcher and intern, didn't even have it in their massive collection of books about jazz.

And I thank the person who started this thread for spelling his name correctly. So many people including record stores misspell it as "Adderly" both for Cannon and Nat.

[B. Goren.]

One of my favorite albums is Nippon Soul. Recorded in concert in Japan on July 1963. I like cannonball's collaboration with Lateef. On this recordings we can hear Lateef at his best, specially on one of the tunes he contributed- Brother John, dedicated of course to Coltrane. Lateef is absolutely fascinating on oboe.

Another great collaboration is between Cannonball and Milt Jackson on Things Are Getting Better.

[king ubu]

...

Another great collaboration is between Cannonball and Milt Jackson on Things Are Getting Better.

Oh yes! A magnificient album! Cannon also guests on a Milt Jackson big band date included on this set here:

ubu

[Morganized]

One of my favorite albums is Nippon Soul. Recorded in concert in Japan on July 1963. I like cannonball's collaboration with Lateef. On this recordings we can hear Lateef at his best, specially on one of the tunes he contributed- Brother John, dedicated of course to Coltrane. Lateef is absolutely fascinating on oboe.

I agree about Nippon Soul. I also like the continuation of this tour recorded on a cd called Cannoball Adderley live in Japan --Dizzy's Business or something like that. It may even be better. This is classic, classic stuff.

[jazzbo]

Damn! I still have to get that Ray Brown and Milt Jackson cd!

[Guy Berger]

A few of the Capitol things are currently available, http://www.bluenote.com/artistpage.asp?ArtistID=3270 but many more aren't. They're a mixed bag, to put it mildly, but there's some really good stuff there. Hopefully the reissues will continue.

The tune "74 Miles Away" is really incredible! Cannonball incorporated avant-garde ideas into his style very effectively during the mid 60s.

Guy

[JSngry]

Yeah, there's a thing on THE HAPPY PEOPLE where the Brazzilians are groovin' away all happy and stuff, the changes are nice and friendly, and Ball is just fitting into the rhythm like he was born in Rio, but he's playing WAAAAAYYY outside the changes without causing anybody to bat an eye.

Cannonball was deeper than he let on sometimes. The kind of natural "neutral zone" that he provided audiences (groove and stretching at the same time for whoever wanted what) went a long way towards creating a healthy jazz scene. Now it seems like it's "either/or". that may (or may not!) have more "integrety", but damn, where's the people?

Like I said, he's greatly missed, and not just for his playing, either. Rahsaan too. Those guys built bridges that went both ways.

[DrJ]

Interesting observations, Jim. In a totally different way in terms of sound and impact, I've been really hit lately by the way Benny Golson often did (and still does) the same thing - play WAY far outside the conventional harmonies but you don't immediately recognize it unless you're listening carefully. On a couple of cuts on the recent Tom McIntosh recording he plays on (on the IPO label), if you listen to the solo and imagine the notes played with Eric Dolphy's phrasing and tone, it's startling how much similarity there is in terms of harmonic choices and even intervallic leaps.

Anyway, I totally agree with you about Cannonball often doing the same thing. The "soulful veil" over his playing just made it more discrete and easier to digest on initial hearing.

Edited September 16, 2004 by DrJ

[JSngry]

That Zawinul bio talks a little bit about how Joe was always wanting to push the envelope, and Nat was often resistant. But Cannon took the reins and went on ahead with Joe's ideas and incorporated them into the overall presentation, and Nat eventually got hip.

Very, VERY shrewd, Mr. Adderley was, a man with something for the head and the heart, and the feet too.No wonder he was loved by "the people" (ALL of them!). Can't say it enough - he's missed today.

[Shrdlu]

I am alone in thinking that his post-Riverside albums are a tad hard to get at the moment? I never did get to hear much of his work after that period, and would like to now.

A few of the Capitol things are currently available, http://www.bluenote.com/artistpage.asp?ArtistID=3270 but many more aren't. They're a mixed bag, to put it mildly, but there's some really good stuff there. Hopefully the reissues will continue.

Could you post what you think is good from the post-Riverside era please, Jim? For some reason, I have not heard much of it. Sadly, the Capitols are at the mercy of Ron McMaster. D'Oh!

One that I did get on LP was "Domination", with a big band arranged by Oliver Nelson. Although one might argue that it's a bit "commercial", I really like it. There's a very nice bit with a clarinet choir behind the alto. The AMG guide's brief review is unkind to the album and I wonder if the reviewer ever actually heard the LP.

That "Know What I Mean" album, with Bill Evans, is superb. A favorite of mine. [Funnily enough, I think the title tune never achieved its aim. That usually happens when you try to force something to happen. It's a bit like the 40s cartoon studio boss who told the staff to make another Bugs Bunny.]

[JSngry]

DOMINATION is indeed a fine side.

Try the classic MERCY MERCY MERCY and see what you think. Some burning straight-ahead stuff mixed in with some funky stuff. The PLAYS ZAWINUL compilation looks pretty tasty too. Don't have that specific disc, but I'm familiar with most of the stuff on there, and, yeah!

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF gets good reviews in these parts, and I'll not disagree overall, although the most of the tunes are too truncated to be really satisfying for me on a larger scale.

Now, if you're doing vinyl, keep an eye out for ACCENT ON AFRICA, LIVE! (w/Charles Llyd, not to be confused w/LIVE SESSION w/Ernie Amdrews, which is on CD and which I have yet to hear) and EXPERIENCE IN E. I don't think that you'd like the later Capitol sides, as they tend to have a lot of electronics and rock/funk beats, but I could be wrong. And that thing on Hyena/Night, RADIO MUSIC, that's a GREAT sampling of two mid-60s live sets, including some of Cannonball's raps.

An oh yeah - the side w/Nancy Wilson! YES!