Canonball & Trane

[JSngry]

Had an interesting listen yesterday, Cannonball's Capitol side Live! (recorded in 1964). On "Work Song", his solo is definitely stretching the harmony, and he's definitely working with some Trane-ish rhythmic ideas. And on the modal-ish "The Little boy With The Sad Eyes", although his harmonic approach is still pretty straightforward, his phrasing is a lot morefocused and "definitve" than in was on KOB from five years earlier. But on "Sweet Georgia Bright" (Charles Lloyd was in the band, btw, as were Zawinul, Sam Jones, & Louis Hayes), he takes what could easily be a vehicle for Trane-ish blowing and approaches it old-school Cannonball, masterful slash-and-burn boppishness in every regard.

All of which suggests to me that Cannonball looked at "figuring out" Trane as an ongoing personal quest. He wasn't going to alter his whole approach and bring his career to a standstill just to do it, but he wasn't going to keep it strictly to himself either, much less let go of it entirely. As he got more comfortable with it, he started playing that way on even the more "commercial" material (a lot of it, anyway), which is what I meant early on about him doing it "on the sly" careerwise. Listen to him on almost any of his 70s albums for either Capitol or Milestone and you can hear what he'd been working on really come to the fore in his playing, no matter what the context. He didn't "back away from the challenge" and he didn't jump overboard in a rush to be somebody he wasn't. He just did it at his own pace and in his own way. Like I said, I gotta love him for that.

BTW - that Live! side is very nice, perhaps the most "uncompromising jazz" Cannonball side that Capitol ever released. Four long cuts ranging in time from 6:25 to 15:05, even with what I suspect to be significant editing of Zawinul's & Lloyd's contributions. It really should be reissued, and bonus/unedited cuts would really raise the ante. It seems to be his first recording after the 1963 Japanese tour, and although I prefer Lateef to Lloyd, this was a cooking band, as their portion of the Night Music/Hyena Radio Nights side attests.

Edited January 25, 2006 by JSngry

[DukeCity]

Thanks for the comments on Cannonball "Live", Sangrey. I don't know that side, but I'm gonna start lookin'.

...That is, without doubt the music of Anderson (he of "The Syncopated Clock" et al.) was deeply prefab/streamlined-corny, and Cannonball had some affinity with that kind of thing -- though on a very good good day like this one he could take a tune like "Serenata" and transform its manufactured swoony dreaminess into genuine lyricism IMO. BTW, I'm not saying that I am (or that anyone can or should be) wholly immune to manufactured swoony dreaminess and all its various offshoots -- not possible if you were born in the U.S.A. in the 20th Century. In fact, one of the things that a fair amount of jazz does is show us how to deal with those more or less inescapable things. Anyhow, Cannonball on "Serenata" is one of my favorite examples, in part because it's fairly extreme and/or close to going over the line.

I know what you mean, Larry. I remember the first time I heard:

Within a whole album of rather saccharine settings, I marveled at a couple of things:

1. The incredible beauty of Cannonball's sound on "I Cover the Waterfront" and

2. The ridiculous contrast in the arrangement of "Surrey with the Fringe on Top". The two-beat strings playing the bouncy 'swing' over the woodblock horse hooves, and then Cannonball comes in with his truly swinging break, and it totally kills!

I don't think I've ever made it all the way through the record in one sitting (diabetic coma looms after a couple of cuts), but I've played that "Surrey" break over and over, just shaking my head and practically giggling with delight.

Not to mention that cover shot of Cannonball leering at his Super 20!

[jazzbo]

I always saw that cover shot as Cannon listening to playback with a smile.. . . I think I'll stick to that option!

Jim, last time I listened to Live I thought there were some edits in there too. . . .Here's hoping it gets reissued soon. . . good stuff!