Cannonball Adderley

[Durium]

CANNONBALL ADDERLEY

Somethin' Else today ........

A great album to celebrate !!

Somethin' Else - 50

Keep swinging

Durium

[Durium]

CANNONBALL ADDERLEY

The great alto sax player Julian Cannonball Adderley passed away the 8th of August 1975, today 33 years ago. He belonged to the group of legendary 1950s and 1960s jazz musicians like John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, but he always kept himself a bit in the background. Playing the alto saxophone he was labeled as the new Charlie Parker when he made his debut short after Parker's death, and although his music often sounded like Parker, he, and his fellow alto saxophone players, were alway compared to Bird in those days.!

Cannonball Adderley

Keep swinging

Durium

[BillF]

Yes, I remember disparaging reviews of Cannonball which saw him both as a Bird copycat and as a coarsener of Bird's art. In retrospect we can see that Cannonball was a great artist of a later generation than Bird, with a wonderful brash swagger to his playing which was all his own and quite in keeping with the way the music was going in the late fifties, when he was a partner in the innovations of Miles, Coltrane and Bill Evans.

[poetrylover3]

This is a desert island disc for me-from the mysterious opening of "Autumn Leaves" the set never fails to entrance me. It's one of the great discs from 1958-a great year for jazz.

Peace,

Blue Trane

[AllenLowe]

one of the most important recordings of the 1950s, IMHO - and rarely noted, to my great surprise, is that it's an obvious warmup for Kind of Blue - as a matter of fact I prefer it to Kind of Blue -

Edited August 8, 2008 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

...except that KOB doesn't give us anything even remotely as counter-productive as "Dancing In The Dark".

[Big Al]

...except that KOB doesn't give us anything even remotely as counter-productive as "Dancing In The Dark".

[JSngry]

Sorry, but that cut seems out of place on the album to me, always has. Plus when people talk about how Cannonball had a cheesy, ok..."overly florid", streak, that to me is a prime example of what they mean. I don't hear it nearly as often as some do, but I'll not deny its existence by any means.

Tell you what, though, it evolved itself rather nicely as the 60s wore on into the 70s. Eventually it was all but gone, or at least it had morphed into something more grounded than it had been previously.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm a big Cannonball fan, but in many, many ways, I think, type of material aside, he was a "better" player later than earlier, sometimes significantly so.

[AllenLowe]

Cannonball's evolution is interesting - there's some spot on quotes by Miles about how, early in his playing in NYC, Cannonball swung but was harmonically bland - and we can hear a bit of this in the Savoy recordings, I think; by the time of Something Else he was taking Miles advice about chord substitutions quite seriously, if not (in the big big picture) as seriously as Coltrane - I like Dancing in the Dark but, true, it reflects a different path than the rest of that album -

[JSngry]

I think; by the time of Something Else he was taking Miles advice about chord substitutions quite seriously, if not (in the big big picture) as seriously as Coltrane

Cannonball took his own sweet time about it, but by the time he died, he was pretty comfortable with some really stretched out harmonic concepts. The "Stars Fell On Alabama" from Phenix is so far removed from the one on the album w/Trane both tonally and timbrally as to be a different player altogether, even though, of course, it's not.

[Larry Kart]

Sorry, but that cut seems out of place on the album to me, always has. Plus when people talk about how Cannonball had a cheesy, ok..."overly florid", streak, that to me is a prime example of what they mean. I don't hear it nearly as often as some do, but I'll not deny its existence by any means.

Tell you what, though, it evolved itself rather nicely as the 60s wore on into the 70s. Eventually it was all but gone, or at least it had morphed into something more grounded than it had been previously.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm a big Cannonball fan, but in many, many ways, I think, type of material aside, he was a "better" player later than earlier, sometimes significantly so.

The problem (if that's the way to put it) is that Cannonball's "overly florid" streak is inseparable (or not easily separable) from his virtues. "Dancing in the Dark" is an example of this (though not perhaps a perfect one); a perfect example IMO would be "Serenata" from "Cannonball Takes Charge." Cannonball digs Leroy Anderson from the inside out; indeed, the genius of this performance is that it imposes no framework of finger-popping hipness or whatever on the Anderson vibe but instead homes in on its Straussian (Johann, not Richard or Leo) blend of musicality, sweetness, and lilting sentiment; Cannonball had that in him, deeply, and if at times things get out of control and one feels like gagging, there it is -- virtually inseparable. Anyone for "Lisbon Antigua"?

As for Allen's point about Miles nagging Cannonball about his harmonic blandness and Cannonball taking Miles advice to use more "advanced" chord substitutions, to my mind this led (at least when Cannonball was with Miles) to the most unsuccessful, disjointed (one kind of musical diction butting up against another, to the detriment of both) playing of Cannonball's entire career. "Autumn Leaves" arguably is as fine as any solo Cannonball ever recorded; maybe I'm deaf, but I don't hear a significant chord substitution throughout; the solo, in harmonic terms, almost could have been played by Benny Carter (that's not to say that Carter is harmonically unsophisticated but that he would have shunned the kind of "hip" harmonic babbling that Cannonball gets into on, say, much of the contemporaneous Columbia album "Milestones"). Also, I always thought that it was Coltrane's example that lured Cannonball into what was (for him) a morass.

[AllenLowe]

I see the difference in other ways, though I agree with Larry as far as it goes - trouble is, however, that I haven't listened to said performances in a long time, so my memory is rusty - I actually find early Cannonball (the Savoys) lacking not in the kind of big harmonic skips that Coltrane practiced, but in some basic bebop chromaticism and even the more typical bebop substitiutions (as in the 2 minor seven and the domonant minor seventh)-lotsa notes but a lack of the kind of oblique intervals that beboppers favored (eg the 13th as opposed to the 6th - same note, different feeling) - and I always though that this was what Miles was referring to - but now I'm not sure -

[DukeCity]

For me, that element of sweetness and sentimentality in Cannonball's playing is crucial to his Cannonball-osity. When I hear him play Seranata or Poor Butterfly, he embraces the sweetness of the tune when he plays the melody, but then he tempers it when he starts blowing. Even on Dancing in the Dark (and yeah, maybe it doesn't really fit the vibe of the rest of Somethin' Else), if you get past the head, to the blowing, it's just Cannonball playing a ballad.

How 'bout Cannonball with Strings? Now there's the saccharine taken to the gagging extreme. But even then, on Surrey With the Fringe On Top, when he plays his solo break, it puts the juxtaposition of the sweet/corny tune and the jazz playing of Cannonball in its starkest relief. (Even though I can't take more that a a tune or two at one sitting from that record, "I Cover the Waterfront" never fails to warm my cockels).

And it seems that Cannonball had a sincere affinity for pretty/sweet/corny tunes in a similar way that Sonny Rollins does. They aknowledge exactly what the tune is; don't try to "hip up" the tune; but then they do their thing on it. What makes it cool is how unapologetic they are about taking the tune as it is.

On a saxophonistically technical note, I think it's Cannonball's vibrato (along with his tone) that most immediately establishes when he's in "sweetness" mode. Considering that he recieved college training at FAMU, I wonder how much studying of "classical" saxophone he did. In that kind of training, there's lots of work done on getting control over the speed and depth of vibrato (check out the first long notes he plays on Dancing in the Dark). And one would assume that he also had to spend some time with the saxophone "literature" and other classical pieces.

[John L]

When you can play the blues like Cannonball, how much harmonic complexity do you really need?

I can enjoy Cannonball's playing throughout his career, but I certainly don't give second tier status to the Savoys. In fact, if I could only have one Cannonball set, it might be "Presenting Cannonball."

[Larry Kart]

Good points, Duke City -- which means I agree with them. Also agree that "Poor Butterfly" is right up there with "Serenata" -- the latter is the one I think of first because plenty of people have played "Poor Butterfly" but no one else AFAIK has played "Serenata," which also has, like most Anderson, grim associations if you lived through the '50s ("The Typewriter"? "The Syncopated Clock"?)

[Peter Friedman]

For my taste, it is Cannonball's Riverside recordings that I most enjoy. One problem I hear on the Miles Davis Sextet sessions on Columbia is that Cannonball's playing is seriously overshadowed by both Miles and Coltrane. To my ears, he sounds less comfortable in that group compared to his own Riverside sessions.

Those Riverside sextet albums with Yusef Lateef are special favorites of mine.

I should also include the dates on TCB and on Capitol with the same sextet.

They are to my way of thinking Hard Bop classics. I also give very high marks to "Cannonball Takes Charge", and "Things Are Getting Better" with Bags.

In one way of looking at it, "Something Else" may be a better recording because Cannonball does not have to be compared with Coltrane.

I know Jim has a preference for Cannonball's later recordings. Personally, I don't hear that much that interests me in most of Cannonball's later albums. Many, though not all, of the later things veer toward a more commercially oriented direction, and included the fadish electric keyboard. That straight ahead hard swinging music that begins with the Savoys and EmArcy albums and reaches it's highest level on the Riverside albums, seems to me to have moved down a different road. It is not a road I find I care to travel on very often.

Edited August 9, 2008 by Peter Friedman

[Spontooneous]

Doggone it, I like Cannon's streak of Benny Carter. So corny that it's kinda daring.

[JSngry]

I know Jim has a preference for Cannonball's later recordings. Personally, I don't hear that much that interests me in most of Cannonball's later albums. Many, though not all, of the later things veer toward a more commercially oriented direction, and included the fadish electric keyboard. That straight ahead hard swinging music that begins with the Savoys and EmArcy albums and reaches it's highest level on the Riverside albums, seems to me to have moved down a different road. It is not a road I find I care to travel on very often.

Oh, no doubt the earlier records are (usually) better records. Most of the Capitols and a lot of the Fantasys are not without..."trappings" of one kind or another (however, the few that aren't or almost aren't are dandy!). But I like Cannonball's playing better on the later sides.

That's a distinction that I wish I didn't have to make, but it was what it was, and it still is. I'm in full agreement that Cannonball with Miles is more often than not the sound of a man in a severe state of discombobulation as he was having both his head and the future of music handed to him nightly. But I also think he welcomed the discombobulation, took it like a man and realized that, yeah, he had to keep on making a living but equally yeah, he definitely had some homework to get to.

And that's what he did. After he left Miles, he unapologetically went on about the business of making a living (and more power to him for that, hell yeah), but he also kept doing his homework. And if you care to follow the evolution of his playing as it exists inside (sometimes deep inside) those Capitols & Fantasys, you can hear the results.

Believe me, I can totally understand anybody not wanting to go to that amount of "work" (although listened to today, the "problem" with a lot of those albums for me is more programming than actual playing). But if anybody wants to, the story is there to hear, and it's a story not without some pretty significant evolutions.

[JSngry]

And also fwiw, almost all of those post-Mercy Capitol albums had at least one (sometimes only one) "hard-swinging" (if you count driving, modal/vampy things that aren't bop-derived in that category, and i know that not everybody does). You could probably make a really nice compilation of them and surprise a few people...

[mjzee]

Was it ever nailed down exactly why Miles appears as a sideman on Somethin' Else? I've heard a lot of theories floated: Miles said in his autobiography "because he asked me," I think Cuscuna said it was to help BN out as a favor when they were struggling... It's pretty obvious it's more of a Miles album than a Cannonball album. Thoughts?

[jazzbo]

I share Jim's love of the playing on the Fantasy and Capitol Cannons. Man! Just sends me!

[DukeCity]

Good points, Duke City -- which means I agree with them. Also agree that "Poor Butterfly" is right up there with "Serenata" -- the latter is the one I think of first because plenty of people have played "Poor Butterfly" but no one else AFAIK has played "Serenata," which also has, like most Anderson, grim associations if you lived through the '50s ("The Typewriter"? "The Syncopated Clock"?)

Don't forget "Sleigh Ride!"

[Guy Berger]

I know Jim has a preference for Cannonball's later recordings. Personally, I don't hear that much that interests me in most of Cannonball's later albums. Many, though not all, of the later things veer toward a more commercially oriented direction, and included the fadish electric keyboard. That straight ahead hard swinging music that begins with the Savoys and EmArcy albums and reaches it's highest level on the Riverside albums, seems to me to have moved down a different road. It is not a road I find I care to travel on very often.

Oh, no doubt the earlier records are (usually) better records. Most of the Capitols and a lot of the Fantasys are not without..."trappings" of one kind or another (however, the few that aren't or almost aren't are dandy!). But I like Cannonball's playing better on the later sides.

I'm with Jim here. His later playing had more depth and is, to me, more interesting.

For what it's worth, on reading reviews by Lon, I picked up Why Am I Treated So Bad a while back - very good album, commercial leanings or not.

Guy

[Mark Stryker]

Jim:

I don't know the late Cannonball records very well -- a hole in my knowledge that it's time to fill. Could you make some recommendations as to some effecient places to start or some don't-miss choices.

Thanks.

MS

[JSngry]

74 Miles Away

Experience In E

The Price You Got To Pay To Be Free

The Black Messiah

Inside Straight

Pyramid

These are five post-Mercy sides that have plenty of meat, although none of them are "perfect".

There's also the Cannoinball Plays Zawinul compilation released not that long ago. Fine stuff to be had there.

And truthfully, the Mercy Mercy Mercy album minus the title cut could pass muster as a Riverside side. Really.

Also, Peter mentioned the sextet sides w/Yusef. I love that stuff too, and I think that the Alive set w/Charles Lloyd is almost at the same level.

A lot of people also swear by Phenix, but that one's never really gelled with me, mainly becuase of how it's mixed. But his playing on that is pretty much wide open over some frieghteningly tame grooves.

Really, there's no Cannonball on Capitol that is not worth exploring depending on the price you have to pay, and the same goes for any regular (i.e. - no "concept") Fantasy album.