Bill Evans: Evans in England - Resonance Records

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“... beauty still affects people, … they know they are custodians of it. We still need to believe in the beautiful. ...all of us are more loyal to the idea of beauty than we mean to be or know we are.”

- Liz Lev, art historian and author as told to Peggy Noonan, WSJ [paraphrased]

“One of Evans's favorite tour stops in Europe was Ronnie Scott's, the London jazz club launched and managed by two British saxophonists—Ronnie Scott and Pete King. According to drummer Marty Morell, a member of the Bill Evans Trio from 1968 to 1974. Evans loved the club's impeccably tuned piano and the city's old-school jazz fans ….”

- Marc Myers, insert notes to Bill Evans: Evans in England

“In March 1965, [Ronnie Scott’s] club was able to announce proudly the arrival of the first all-American group to play on its premises. Bill Evans was indeed something to be proud of. He was that rare breed: a jazz performer with a strongly European bias toward reflection rather than explicit emotion who could still convey all of the orthodox jazz virtues of swing, profound understanding of the blues and a strong sense of spontaneity….

It was the perfectionist quality of Evans's approach and the subtlety of his thinking that made Ronnie Scott and Pete King realise that they would have to improve the facilities a little. The club's piano was a battered old upright that had been in use there since the establishment opened, its eccentricities by now instinctively grasped by Tracey [house pianist Stan Tracey], who knew every treacherous habit it had. But they could not expect Evans to play on it. So the two club proprietors performed the long-postponed ritual of selling the piano the weekend before Evans was due to arrive. They then set about hiring a grand piano. …

Eventually a friend and sympathiser with the club's objectives, the jazz pianist and composer Alan Clare, was able to arrange the loan of a grand piano for Evans's opening show. It came at the eleventh hour.

When Evans began to play … he had distinct mannerisms in performance, [and] Evans seemed to express his apparent desire to escape more and more comprehensively into a fascinating landscape inside his own head. A thin intense-looking figure, he sat at the instrument with his head bowed over it, his nose at times virtually touching the keyboard, hands floating ethereally through a mixture of evaporating arpeggios, crisp, sinewy single-line figures that would erupt and vanish in an instant, and an ever-present rhythmic urgency that continually prodded at the otherwise speculative and otherworldly quality of his work.

Unlike many of the bebop pianists, Evans did not merely concentrate on chorus after chorus of melodic variations on the harmony - the latter usually expressed in bald, percussive chords designed to emphasise the beat -but sought to develop a solo as a complete entity with a fundamental logic and shape, his left hand developing and enriching the harmony. … Bill Evans - as the New York Village Voice writer Gary Giddins remarked - exhibited the white jazz players' gift of 'swinging with melancholy'. Evans became another regular visitor to Ronnie Scott's Club over the years, with a variety of high-class and empathetic accompanists.”

- John Fordham, Jazz Man The Amazing Story of Ronnie Scott and His Club

“For many decades the transatlantic traffic of jazz musicians suffered at the hands of politicians. Not until 1965, after a history of restrictions and exchange agreements, was the gate fully opened for ail-American hands to play in Britain. In March of that year the Bill Evans Trio became the first such group to play at Ronnie Scott's jazz club, and for the pianist's British followers it was a momentous visit. ...

The critics for Melody Maker had just voted Evans into first place in their jazz piano poll. Such critical reaction was based on his recordings, but there is nothing like hearing the real thing. Today it is easy to forget the impact of this new voice whenever he went to a new place. The pianist John Horler recalls his first experience of the Evans sound; ‘I remember being at the bar at Ronnie Scott's with my back to the bandstand when I heard these chords being played very quietly on the piano. The impact was as great as if you'd suddenly heard the Count Basie band in full cry! I turned around, and Bill Evans was sitting at the piano ready to start his first set."

- Peter Pettinger, Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings

With the exception of Pops, Duke, and Miles and Coltrane, more words have been written about Bill Evans than any other Jazz musician of the 20th century.

But while the narratives about Armstrong, Ellington, Davis and ‘Trane are mostly celebratory, that is to say, works of praise and respect regarding their achievements, the writings about Evans tend to be analytical; more focused on his style and discerning the elements that made it so unique.

[Coltrane may be an exception in that he fits into both categories].

Thus we read reams about Bill’s approach to harmonic analysis, thematic analysis, modal analysis, intervallic analysis, reharmonization and advanced reharmonization techniques, rhythmic displacement, upper structures, slash chords, polychords, Drop 2 voicing and cluster chords.

All of this about a musician who told Brian Case in one of his last interviews before his death in September, 1980:

“The fact that music is polytonal, atonal, polyrhythmic, or whatever doesn’t bother me - but it must say something.

I work with very simple means because I'm a simple person, and I came from a simple tradition out of dance music and jobbing, and though I've sorta studied a lot of other music, I feel that I know my limitations and I try to work within them. Really, there's no limit to the expression I could make within the idiom if I had the inner need to say something.

This is where I find the problem. More an emotional, a creative - emotional problem.'”

[The Quiet Innovator,  Melody Maker, 9.27.1980. Emphasis mine].

After reading Bill’s emphasis on the role emotion plays his approach, it is the height of irony to read so much analysis on “the Bill Evans sound” which stresses the intellectual!

Any new recording by Bill is important because it becomes a link in the thread of his improvisational logic. Bill’s work was not about replaying licks and phrases, it was about applying a constantly evolving approach to Jazz piano, seeing what resulted and extending this knowledge to the next stylistic enhancement and embellishment.

Peter Pettinger in his seminal Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings, puts this point another way:

“Each time he took the stage, he entered that world he had created for himself and for which he lived, plugging into a continuous stream of consciousness on another plane, gathering up the reins of an ongoing creation.”

And Pettinger adds to this assertion in the following statement:

“The trio played Keystone Korner [San Francisco, CA] for eight nights, starting on Sunday, August 31, 1980. All eight performances were recorded by the club owner, Todd Barkan, and issued in 1989, ..., on an eight-CD set by Alfa Records of Tokyo called Consecration: The Last Complete Collection. ….

On the first night, a rendering of "My Foolish Heart" was conjured to compare with the classic 1961 performance from the Vanguard. Now, with continuity of feeling (and key, A major) over the intervening years, a more adventurous statement was being made, farther flung on the keyboard and freer rhythmically. The original conception had developed in complexity but not deepened in spirit: simply, its essence had remained intact, affirming the initial worth.” [Emphasis mine]

And even when, as pianist Andy LaVerne [in an interview with Wim Hinkle in “Letter from Evans,” 5/2] explains -

“What he was doing was playing ahead of the changes. His right-hand line would be ahead of where the changes were happening in the harmonic rhythm. That way he could create tension and release; when the changes caught up to his line, obviously that would be a release."  - this displacement of phrases came absolutely naturally to Evans, developed through feeling, not intellect. He was not trying to throw his listeners but to say more within the form of jazz.

Recordings from the mid to late 1960’s are particularly important in the Evans oeuvre because -

“Evans had by this juncture created an entirely individual harmonic language as estimable in its thoroughness of working as those of, say, Gershwin, Messiaen, or the neoclassical Stravinsky. It was based on the tonal system of the popular song and had evolved at its own painstakingly slow pace, its creator never in a hurry to leap ahead, always content to add voicings and intensify harmony step by step, consolidating all the way.

It was a craft of distinction; because he selected the notes of a chord with extra care he could heighten expressiveness by playing fewer of them,

his thoroughly grounded knowledge enabling him to make quite original substitutions. As each new element of his vocabulary became assimilated into general use, so the ground was laid for the next, and thus his own successive brands of piquancy came alive. This essentially harmonic world was enhanced by inner and outer moving parts, comments and colorings: a note that began life as a chromatic passing note might be transferred into the chord itself, which then emerged as a fresh voicing. The evolution spanned his whole life and was continuing to develop at his death.” [Pettinger; Emphasis mine]

In parallel with the choice of notes was the rhythmic variety into which they were cast, an acuity which had been sharpened early on, during his first excursions with George Russell. In trying to describe some of his rhythmic approaches in the trio, Evans likened the placement of his chords to shadow lettering, in which the shadows rather than the letters are drawn, yet the observer is always conscious only of the letters themselves. He was fascinated by disguise, surprise, and asymmetry; asymmetry, in fact—in the form of displacement—almost developed into an occupational hazard.

Phrases fell according to their content rather than the position of the bar line. Evans referred to an "internalized" beat or pulse, around which the trio played, avoiding the obvious and the explicit. As for cross-rhythms, he had always been at home in two meters at once, leaning fearlessly into the one he was engaged upon. A further subtle dimension in his playing, extra to written time-divisions, is all but beyond description: an impulsive motion that can only be likened to the timing of a great actor or comedian. In ballads especially, this sense was indispensable to their strength.”

In essence Bill lived the following precept in his music:

“It ends up where the Jazz player, ultimately, if he’s going to be a serious Jazz player, teaches himself. ...

You cannot progress on top of vagueness and confusion, he declared. He was living proof of his own classic maxim: "It is true of any subject that the person that succeeds ... has the realistic viewpoint at the beginning, knowing that the problem is large, and that he has to take it a step at a time, and he has to enjoy this step-by-step learning procedure." [Louis Carvell, “The Universal Mind of Bill Evans,” Rhapsody Films, 1966.]

Pianist Chick Corea once said in paying homage to his accomplishment: “Bill’s value can’t be measured in any kind of terms. He’s one of the great, great artists of the 20th century.”

This being the case, the discovery, preparation and production of more of Bill’s recorded music by George Klabin, Zev Feldman and the team at Resonance Records is to be lauded for having uncovered an extremely valuable new work “by one of the great artists of the 20th century.”

Here’s their media release about their brilliant, new find:

RESONANCE RECORDS' NEW BILL EVANS DISCOVERY EVANS IN ENGLAND

BOWS AS A LIMITED-EDITION 2LP RECORD STORE DAY EXCLUSIVE

ON APRIL 13 AND 2CD/DIGITAL RELEASE ON APRIL 19

Previously Unreleased 1969 Recordings with Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, England is the Fourth Official Collaboration with the Evans Estate.

Includes an Extensive Book with Rare Photos by Jean-Pierre Leloir; Essays by Acclaimed Author Marc Myers and French Filmmaker Leon Terjanian; Plus Exclusive Interviews with Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell

Los Angeles, February 2019 - Resonance Records, the leading outlet for high-quality, unheard archival jazz releases, proudly announces that it will issue Evans in England, a vibrant, previously unreleased set of recordings featuring music by lyrical piano master Bill Evans with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell captured during an engagement at Ronnie Scott's celebrated jazz club in December 1969.

The Evans album continues Resonance's tradition of unveiling a special release on Record Store Day, the annual event promoting independent record retailers. As Variety noted in a 2018 profile of the label, "If Record Store Day had a mascot label, it would be Resonance Records, a small, L.A.-based jazz independent that's become known even outside the genre for producing high-end archival releases tailored especially with the RSD market in mind."

Evans in England, which features 18 electrifying performances by Evans' brilliant trio of 1968-74, will initially be issued on April 13 - Record Store Day 2019 — as a limited edition 180-gram two-LP set, mastered by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood and pressed at Record Technology, Inc. (RTI); the package will be available only at participating independent record outlets. Two-CD and digital configurations of the set will be available April 19.

The album will include extensive liner notes including essays by producer and Resonance co-president Zev Feldman and jazz writer Marc Meyers; interviews with Gomez, Morell, and filmmaker Leon Terjanian; and rare photos by Chuck Stewart, Jean-Pierre Leloir, and Jan Persson.

Evans in England succeeds a pair of widely acclaimed Evans releases from Los Angeles-based independent Resonance that featured the pianist's short-lived 1968 trio with Gomez and drummer Jack DeJohnette: 2016's collection of lost studio sides Some Other Time and 2017's set of Dutch radio recordings Another Time. The latter release was named one of the year's top historical releases by DownBeat, JazzTimes, the U.K.'s Jazzwise, and the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll.

In 2012, the label released its first album devoted to unissued music by the pianist, Bill Evans Live at Art D'Lugoff’s Top of the Gate, a set of two never-before-heard 1968 concerts from the Greenwich Village club featuring the trio with Gomez and Morell recorded by Resonance founder and co-president George Klabin.

Producer Feldman says, "It's very exciting for Resonance to be collaborating on our fourth project together with the Evans Estate. These are really extraordinary recordings that represent Bill at his very, very best, and document the great art and chemistry that existed between these three gentlemen — Bill Evans, Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell — captured just a year into what would go on to become Bill's longest-lasting trio."

As has been the case with some of Resonance's other collections of rare and unheard jazz, the music on Evans in England arrived at the label's doorstep via a bolt out of the blue: an unexpected email to Feldman from a man who said he was in possession of some previously unissued Evans recordings.

The gentleman in question was Leon Terjanian, a friend and devoted fan of Evans who had filmed the pianist for his documentary feature Turn Out the Stars, which premiered at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1981.

Through the late Francis Paudras, the famed biographer of jazz piano titan Bud Powell, Terjanian had made the acquaintance of a French collector who chooses to identify himself only as "Jo." A similarly ardent admirer of Evans' playing, Jo had tracked the keyboardist across Europe and even captured his trio's sets at Ronnie Scott's.

Evans discovered Jo's surreptitious recording activities (which employed a small portable machine), but the musician grew comfortable with his presence, and he allowed his dedicated fan to tape his performances.

In July 2016, Terjanian received a phone call from 84-year-old Jo, who said he wanted to see his Evans recordings issued to the public before his death. That communication prompted contact with Feldman at Resonance. Arrangements were made with the Evans Estate for a legitimately licensed release of the material, with tracks selected by co-presidents George Klabin and Zev Feldman.

Marked by the already empathetic interplay of Evans, Gomez, and Morell, who would perform together for nearly seven years, Evans in England is an exceptional recital that encompasses energetic renderings of such timeless compositions as "Waltz For Debby," "Turn Out the Stars," "Very Early," and "Re: Person I Knew"; extroverted readings of Miles Davis’ "So What" (which Evans originated with the trumpeter sextet on the 1959 classic Kind of Blue) and Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight"; and Evans' earliest recordings of "Sugar Plum" and "The Two Lonely People."

Feldman says, "Bill Evans is an artist who continues to inspire us, all these decades later. I still hear new things in his music upon each new listen, and to find an unearthed set of concert recordings such as these is a cause for widespread joy and jubilation to break out among Evans fans and jazz fans everywhere."

Looking back on the experience of playing with Bill Evans, Gomez says, "He wanted us — me — from the very beginning to just go out there and play and make music, and as long as there's a lot of integrating and honesty and devotion to what we're doing, he was fine. He never put any parameters, or kiboshed anything. So it was an invitation from Bill to try stuff and be creative, and I certainly took the bait."

Morell adds, "It was challenging, inspiring, and just kind of brought the best out of me."

Julian "Cannonball" Adderley - The Barbara Gardner Interview

© -  Steven A. Cerra - copyright protected; all rights reserved.

In the following interview, Cannonball brings out some interesting expectations on the part of Jazz club owners and patrons about the “working conditions” of the times.

When I first started playing Jazz clubs, the first set began at 9:00 PM and the last set ended at 2:00 PM because the venues had as their prime focus - not the music - but the selling of booze.

Musician owned clubs like Shelly’s Manne Hole and Ronnie Scott’s in London, may have been exceptions to this rule, at least initially, but for the most part, the emphasis was not on the music or on the welfare of the musicians.

Under the circumstances, as Cannonball points out, there was simply no way that any musician could maintain a high level of creativity.

At the time of this its publication in the October 15, 1959 edition of Down Beat magazine Barbara Gardner was described as follows in the About the Writer insert:

“Barbara Gardner is a young Chicago writer who was born in Black Mountain, N. C. She was educated at Talladega College in Alabama, where she took a double major — English literature with a journalism minor, and education with a sociology minor.

In 1954 she moved to Chicago. She has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of jazz musicians. "I don't know how it happened. I just seemed to meet them all the time," she says. "And of course I was intensely interested in the music ever since I can remember."

Julian and Nat Adderley are her good personal friends, which adds an extra element of insight to her article on the gifted alto saxophonist. This is her first appearance in DOWN BEAT.”

“Jazz is currently enjoying — or suffering through — the most controversial era in its comparatively short history.

Great armed camps stand against each other. They are for or against traditionalism, modernism, progressivism, and even criticism. When critic meets writer, or Loyal Swing Fan meets Progressive True Believer, the blue tonalities and augmented chords are sure to fly until one camp has slashed the other sharply on its B-flat, and heaven help the bystanding neutral music lover who is audacious enough to intervene.

Underneath this furor, the musicians, of course, quietly go on about the business they feel is urgently important — the creation of music. But the critics and fans, not satisfied with dissecting the various "schools" and classes of jazz, have by now turned to taking apart individual performances. Here, the crisis shows itself — often in the form of open hostility as the jazzman loses patience at being scrutinized to determine whether he is a creator or an imitator, a miracle or a mirage.

Since 1955, one musician has been the object of this kind of examination and cross-examination perhaps more than any other. Wherever musicians or fans gather to discuss modern American music, his name crops up again and again. Dismissed hotly by some as unprogressive or acclaimed fervently for rugged individualism, "Cannonball" is fired into the debate. Here, say his admirers, is the man to be reckoned with as the leading altoist today.

The advent of Gannonball Adderley on the jazz scene was as instantaneous and forceful as his name might seem to suggest. If no one can remember his struggles for recognition in the cold and unexcitable city of New York, it is because he never struggled. His musical acceptance, achieved without effort, goes counter to all the accepted legends about heartbroken, unrecognized genius. He has, of course, worked consistently and hard. He has worked always in jazz, and with the greatest musicians. But his efforts did not go unrewarded; when he arrived in New York, he sat in one night with a group of name musicians in Greenwich Village — and was instantly recognized as a remarkable talent.

Yet the nickname "Cannonball" was not acquired as a symbol of the way he struck New York, bowling everyone over. Actually, it dates back to his high school days. His schoolmates, searching for a term that most aptly described his mammoth appetite, came up with "Cannibal." Time and the American propensity for word corruption gradually twisted this into "Cannonball."

Born simply Julian Edwin Adderley in Tampa, Fla., Cannon represented a talent always inherent in the Adderley clan. His father, Julian F, Adderley, was a noted jazz cornetist who presumed from the start that one of his two sons would play the same horn he did. But Cannon was not to be the one. After dabbling briefly with trumpet in high school, he turned to alto saxophone when he was 14, and it was left to his younger brother, Nat, to become the second famous cornetist in the Adderley family.

Cannon and Nat were something of a musical phenomenon in Tampa. Prior to their studies of instruments, the brothers were a temporary sensation as boy sopranos.

Nor was music the only area in which Julian's precociousness revealed itself. Academically, he skimmed along at a rapid pace, graduating from grammar school at 10, from high school at 15, and from Florida A&M. College at 18. At 19, an age when many adolescents are still going through preliminary bouts with the electric shaver, he was music instructor and band director of Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale.

He grew up fast in every way. This was wartime and, he recalls, "we didn't have any adolescence. I was a fast young musician with plenty of money in my pockets, the men were away at war, and the boys were left around to fill in until they came back."

By this time, Cannonball had been working for three years in local nightclubs and on weekend gigs. Even when he began teaching, lie took advantage of every possible opportunity to blow his horn in the free musical atmosphere of jazz bands and combos.

But his dual existence continued. He went on teaching at Dillard High, and his students were fortunate in having an instructor who was proficient on trumpet, flute, clarinet, tenor saxophone, and, of course, alto. But the bright lights and dreams of fame and fortune continued to pull at him.

His indecision was temporarily settled for him in 1952: he was drafted. Yet, even in the service, his singlemindedness toward music never faltered. He led both a small combo and a big band. And meantime, he was creating a strong impression on jazz musicians who heretofore had never heard of the youthful terror of Tampa. One of them was Clark Terry. Later, Terry was to bring Cannon to the attention of one of the leading recording firms.

When he was at last separated from the army, Cannon went for a time to the U.S. Naval School in Washington, D. C., to study reed instruments. Then, in 1954, he went back to Florida, determined to wipe the bright lights out of his eyes and resume teaching.

But by now the pull toward jazz was too strong. And in the summer of 1955, the Southland lost another of its sons to the glamour of that self-appointed jazz mecca of the world, New York. Cannon arrived in Manhattan at the same time as his brother Nat, who had just left the Lionel Hampton band. He lost no time making his presence known. A stroke of luck helped.

The night after his arrival, tenor saxophonist Jerome Richardson, then with Oscar Pettiford, was late for work at Greenwich Village's Cafe Bohemia. At the urging of musicians who had heard "of" Cannonball, Pettiford — with some reservations - allowed the young man from Tampa to sit in. The musicians' trick of "wasting" the newcomer by playing a difficult arrangement was tried on Adderley.

The musicians were astounded at the outcome of the trick, which is as old as jazz. Cannon romped through the rapid ensemble segment of I’ll Remember April, then established his authority with a long, well-executed solo. By the end of the night, there was no doubt about it. the Tampa Cannonball was in — a welcome soulbrother.

This dramatic impact on the musicians of New York was remarkably parallel to that of Cannon's major source of inspiration, the late Charlie Parker, who came to the big city in the late 1930s, after considerable woodshedding, and astounded musicians and critics alike with his fantastic mastery of his instrument. This parallel, however, taken with the fact that Cannon plays alto with the finely developed sense of timing, the well-defined beat and the flowing melodic sense that had been the stamp of Bird for more than a decade, helped form the only cloud over his career: critics and writers pitted him time after time against Parker in their comparisons.

The musicians' grapevine, second only to the housewife's back fence as a high-speed conveyor of information, spread the word about the new arrival from Florida. Within days, on the strength of this reputation, Cannon was on his way. Arranger Quincy Jones and Cannon's army buddy, Clark Terry, had brought the altoist's prowess to the attention of EmArcy Records. He was signed to a contract.

For a time, he continued to work with Oscar Pettiford. Later, he formed his own group, featuring brother Nat. But it was in 1958 that he began one of the associations for which he is best known: he joined the Miles Davis quintet for the Jazz for Moderns tour. He remained with Miles until last month, and became in the interim friend, business manager, and mediator to the gifted and individualistic trumpeter.

Miles' temperament is, of course, legend in the music business. A complex, seemingly contradictory man whom many persons find difficult to deal with, he is the subject of much talk and speculation. Cannon bristles if the subject is raised.

"I don't understand what all this is concerning Miles," he said. "Miles is just what he has always been. He doesn't try to be the way he is because he is a famous musician. He would be the same type of person if he were a truck driver. He is just

himself, and he doesn't feel that he has to conform for the sake of conformity."

The question of Miles" personality cannot, however, be dismissed that easily. For one thing, there is the observation that Billy Taylor recently made during a Blindfold Test (Down Beat, Sept. 3). "I have been interested," Taylor told Leonard Feather, "in Miles' effect on his side men; how, for instance, he changed Cannonball's way of playing and his approach to music . . . "

There are indications that Miles also had an effect on Cannon's personality, though the changes are subtle. Miles has the rare ability to impose not only some of his approach to music but also some of his personality on his men. Thus, while Cannon is by nature a warm, gregarious individual, he seems to have acquired, in a superficial way, some of the forthright sharpness that is an innate and natural trait in Miles.

Thus it will be seen that the decision to leaves Miles' group is a decisive one for the alto man. He retains a tremendous respect for the trumpeter as a creative force in music and, consciously or unconsciously, uses Miles as his norm in discussing other groups or individual performers.

The effects of Miles obviously were not in the main bad. For Cannonball is currently enjoying a steadily rising appreciation among critics, musicians, and the lay public.

After having been named in almost every leading poll in this country, and mentioned repeatedly in European voting, he capped it this year by winning the poll that many authorities think is the significant one: the International Jazz Critics' Poll conducted by Down Beat. He walked off with the New Star plaque for alto.

Cannon shares with many musicians the paradoxical position of denouncing all polls for their serious omissions and inconsistencies while at the same time admitting that he has long hoped to win one.

"Yes, I'm very proud to be a winner in this poll," he confessed self consciously.

"Everybody wants to feel that people are accepting their work." Then, as if he needed a more practical justification for his pleasure, he added: "Then, too, the polls represent your popularity, really, and your drawing power. When the public is aware of you, you can command better conditions for your efforts."

The "better conditions" would surely include an improvement in the working conditions in nightclubs where, he feels, there is little room  for creative playing. And that, after all, is what Cannonball is after.

"The nights are just too long in most places," he said. "And the conditions generally are bad — small crowded stages and poor sound systems.

"After the first couple of sets, there isn't too much happening in the way of real creativity. You can't just turn talent on and off all night for six or seven hours. They expect you to get up there and create something new seven times a night. "It just isn't possible.”

Now 31 years old, Julian Adderley is a tall man whose heavy build makes him an imposing figure. He has been on a diet of late, and has cut his weight from 300 pounds to a less cumbersome if not exactly svelte 230.

An articulate and extremely well-informed conversationalist, he has a disconcerting habit of spicing his speech with short, earthy expletives traditionally thought appropriate to the conversation of sailors. Of this profanity, he says: "Once in awhile, when you're among friends, you like to let your hair down and just tell it as it is."

Still a bachelor, Cannon thinks that maybe he'll settle down "in about five years." Meantime, he says, "I don't have time for permanent entanglements. When I do, all this travelling and nonsense is going to stop.

"I don't have any definite philosophy of living. I am just beginning to get things straightened out in my own mind. But I do believe that a person has a responsibility to do whatever makes him happy. Nowadays, you can't always take time to reason — or regret what is past.

"You just have to live each day for what it's worth."

He reflected a moment, then went on. "I've seen so many people in this business who just couldn't get their minds together because of worrying whether they should or should not do something. Sometimes they worry about what people are going to think of their actions.

"If you are going to worry, then you shouldn't do a thing in the first place."

For the present, Cannonball has his work and his challenge cut out for him. The departure from Miles gave him the chance to do what he had never really stopped thinking about: setting up another group featuring brother Nat. After touring as stars of the Newport Jazz Festival concert tour, Cannon and Nat hit the circuit Sept. 21 in Philadelphia.

As he and Nat prepared to go out with the group, he was noticeably excited about the chances, about the possibility of finding that new sound that musicians are always seeking.

He was aware, of course, that uncertainty is a stark reality of the jazz world. The artist is never allowed to relax on his laurels and be carried along on the wings of deeds remembered. There is no time allotted or assistance given to those who have been so indiscreet as to fall from favor. They have to step quickly and quietly out of the path as the procession moves resolutely on.

Vivid examples of such tragedies are plentiful in the history of jazz. But there is a possibility that the new generation of jazzmen, of which Cannon is a part, has learned a lesson from its less fortunate predecessors.

"This is a funny business" said Cannonball, summarizing his attitude to music and to his new group. "One day you're right up there on top, and the next day you can't find a job.

"I want to be protected against that kind of future."