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 AM 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."  

"Swingin' in Seattle" - Cannonball Adderley Quintet Live at the Penthouse 1966-67

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

“The way I saw it, Julian was one of the most completely alive human beings I had ever encountered. Seeing and hearing him on the bandstand, you realized the several things that went to make up that aliveness: he was both figuratively and literally larger than life-sized; he was a multifaceted man and it seemed as if all those facets were constantly in evidence, churning away in front of you; and each aspect of him was consistent with every other part — so that you were automatically convinced that it was totally real and sincere, and you were instantly and permanently charmed.

That last paragraph is the emotional way of saying it; if I try real hard I can be more factual and objective. He was a big man and a joyous man. He was a player and a composer and a leader, and when someone else was soloing he was snapping his fingers and showing his enjoyment, and before and after the band's numbers he talked to the audience. (Not talking at them or just making announcements, but really talking to them and saying things about the music — some serious, some very witty.)

So all that whirlwind of varied activity was always going on when he was on the stand, and it all fitted together, and you never even considered the possibility that it could be an act. Of course it wasn't; it was (to use today's cliche) just Cannon doing his thing; and part of his thing was wanting you to enjoy yourself, and you did.”

- Orrin Keepnews, Jazz Record Producer, Author, Critic

“I'm grateful to have had a role in sharing these wonderful Cannonball Adderley recordings with you. As a child, I often listened to live Penthouse tapes with my father; he filled my head with stories about the Penthouse and the artists who played there. That's how I became obsessed with the music, the era and the club. I hope the release of this album will allow you to experience the magic of Cannonball's performances at the Penthouse and also to feel the excitement of actually being in the audience. As a collector myself, I know how important it is that the packaging and design live up to the source material, and I believe this album does just that.”

CHARLIE PUZZO, JR.

Los Angeles, August 2018

“STEVE GRIGGS: How did the Penthouse broadcasts originate?

JIM WILKE: The station came up with the idea. KING-FM saw itself as a showcase for the lively arts. We played all genres: folk, jazz, classical, plus plays and interviews with authors and painters. Our Penthouse show was really old-school radio — live broadcasts on location. People heard great music played right as they listened in their cars and they'd come to the club to catch the second set.

What was the Penthouse like in the 1960s?

Pioneer Square was undergoing a renaissance. Little places were opening up. There were some boutiques, cafes ...

And the World's Fair

Yes. That generated considerable activity. In 1962, Seattle really got a taste for international-level arts: the London Symphony, great ballet and two major theater companies. When the Penthouse appeared in the midst of all this, the station wanted to do something with them. We talked to the people at the Penthouse. They liked the idea. It became a regular thing. We did over 200 Penthouse shows.” ...

“I am so thrilled at the opportunity to work on what I think is an important archival release with Zev Feldman and his team. Cannonball Adderley's music has had a great impact on me as musician, not only as a saxophonist but as a frontman communicating with the audience. Swingin' in Seattle gives the listener a good idea of what it was like to be in the presence of this great musician at one of his shows. I'm particularly happy we've preserved much of Cannonball's between-tune banter. It makes it feel like you're sitting right there at the Penthouse in the front row. Cannonball's music embodies so many things, not the least of which are fun, joy, passion and swing — all the things I love. It has been an extreme pleasure to work on this release with Zev's team.”

- Cory Weeds, Executive Producer, Reel-to-Reel and Cellarlive

Listening to the music of Cannonball Adderley, particularly as expressed in the quintet [and sometime sextet] he co-led for over 20 years with his brother Nat, who favored the cornet over the trumpet, always makes me feel happy, joyous and free.

Needless to say then that the advent of more of it is always a welcome treat.

So imagine my delight when I learned that “Cannonball Adderley’s lost Seattle tapes [would] come to light on a new label.”

The label in question is Cory Weeds Reel to Real Recordings Ltd which you can locate more information about by visiting them online at www.cellarlive.com.

In this section of the insert notes from the booklet accompanying the CD, Zev Feldman explains how it all came about.

THE TAPE FINDS A HOME

“I first learned about legendary Seattle Jazz DJ Jim Wilke and the collection of recorded broadcasts he made from his weekly radio program on KING-FM, Jazz from the Penthouse, in 2010. At the Resonance label, George Klabin had been in touch with Jim and explored releasing some of his rare tapes, so we got a glimpse into his extraordinary archive, a compendium of performances by a veritable Who's Who of the greatest of jazz artists in the world who happened to come to Seattle to play one of the Pacific Northwest's finest jazz clubs. To verify this, all you need to do is the look at the list of the artists who played there. It's pretty impressive. During the years of 1962 to 1968 Cannonball Adderley performed at the club eight times. You can tell Cannon liked playing at the Penthouse; just listen to the warmth he exudes when he speaks of the club and owner, Charlie Puzzo.

From the moment we heard them, George Klabin and I were always very high on the Cannonball Adderley performances. Thev were some of the very first recordings we seriously considered for Resonance's release of archival material. They captured the band in its prime. Then in 2012, we noticed a newly-issued Cannonball live recording from another company and we decided we didn't want to release more live Cannonball material at the same time. Cannonball's project was relegated to the back burner. We always thought the recordings were great and worthy of release, but the tapes sat there. Then I met a friend who wouldn't stop asking me about them .,,

In the spring of 2016 in Vancouver, I met up with Cory Weeds, a musician who was fascinated by the idea of unearthing previously unheard archival recordings by great jazz artists. Cory wanted to start his own historical jazz label, so we did. Together. Cory asked me about any unreleased tapes that I may know about. I mentioned in passing that George had these great recordings of Cannonball Adderley, and that we had done nothing with them. Something must have really stuck with Cory about this because he kept asking me over and over if we wanted them. Next thing I knew, these would become one of our first new releases on Cory's new label, Reel to Real Recordings.

For this, one of Reel to Real's inaugural releases, I was driven to build one of the greatest packages for Cannonball Adderley in his entire discography, and I was lucky to have at my disposal my design, production and editing team of Burton Yount, Zak Shelby-Szyszko and John Koenig, who have worked with me on numerous, highly acclaimed historical projects for Resonance and other labels.

First we worked with Jim Wilke and Charlie Puzzo, Jr. who provided high-resolution transfers of the original tapes. Then Cory and I selected the material. We personally felt it was important to focus on material from the same band and we reviewed recordings made in 1966 and '67 which had the same lineup: Cannonball and Nat Adderley, Joe Zawinul, Victor Gaskin and Roy McCurdy. Next, we contacted Olga Adderley Chandler, Cannonball's widow and the head of the Julian Adderley Estate. We want to express our gratitude to Mrs. Adderley Chandler for making this project possible. We were able to work with the other musician's families and then embarked on gathering the voices for this release.

Author and Cannonball enthusiast Bill Kopp leads with the main essay putting these recordings into context. Next up, Seattle musician and journalist Steve Griggs discusses these recordings and the club and everything in between with the guy who recorded these performances, KING-FM's Jim Wilke. I then chat with Olga Adderley Chandler to get her thoughts on her late husband, and Cory speaks with the drummer on the recordings, the great Roy McCurdy. Then included we have the next generation voice of an alto player who's clearly been influenced by Cannonball, and actually played in Nat's band, the great Vincent Herring. Lastly, Charlie Puzzo, Jr. shares his thoughts about the club his father ran.

These recordings constitute some of the very best unreleased Cannonball material out there. They speak to Cannonball's genius; they're an everlasting reminder of his greatness. A big part of my job is to find homes for important recordings such as these. Not everyone is up to the task of going through alf the steps it takes, but I'm thankful to have found a passionate partner in Cory Weeds who shares my dedication and vision to do this important work the right way. I want to thank everyone who participated in this project.”

ZEV FELDMAN

Los Angeles. July 2018, co-producer for release with Cory Weeds

I could not locate any officially sanctioned videos or audio-only files, but I did find this YouTube of an earlier performance by Cannon’s group of Jimmy Heath’s Big P, which is the opening track on "Swingin' in Seattle" - Cannonball Adderley Quintet Live at the Penthouse 1966-67.

Julian and Nat: The Adderley Brothers

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

“A great popularizer, and a leader in the soul-jazz style of the '6os, Cannon was a much-loved figure who helped keep jazz before an audience at a time when it was losing listeners. ...

Long a critically undervalued figure, Cannonball Adderley's status as a master communicator in jazz has increased since his sadly early death. The blues-soaked tone and hard, swinging delivery of his alto lines are as recognizable a sound as anything in the aftermath of bebop and, while many have been quick to criticize his essentially derivative manner - Cannonball frequently fell back on cliches, because he just liked the sound of them - there's a lean, hard-won quality about his best playing that says a lot about one man's dedication to his craft….

Adderley's regular quintet has often been damned with such faint praise as 'unpretentious' and 'soulful'. This was a hard-hitting, rocking band which invested blues and blowing formulae with an intensity that helped to keep one part of jazz's communication channels open at the time of Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and other seekers after new forms….”

- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.

Julian “Cannonball” Adderley made his New York debut at the Cafe Bohemia in June, 1955, a moment which has gone down in jazz legend. It is a much told tale, but one that bears repeating. Julian and his brother, trumpeter Nat Adderley, had journeyed from their home in Florida to New York to spend some time in the city soaking up the jazz scene. At the time, the trumpeter had worked briefly with Lionel Hampton, but the saxophonist was a total stranger on the New York stage.

The Adderley Brothers made their way directly to Cafe Bohemia, where bassist Oscar Pettiford held the residency. His current saxophonist, Jerome Richardson, was absent, and the band began without him. As Nat Adderley explained to Jazz author Kenny Mathieson in 1997, what happened next has taken up permanent residence in Jazz lore.

“Julian and myself had our horns with us, not because we expected to play, but we didn't want to leave them in the car - this was New York, right? So what happened then was that Charlie Rouse came into the club, and when Oscar saw him come in, he called him over to sit in for Jerome. Charlie didn't have his horn, but Oscar had seen that we had our cases, so he sent Charlie over to borrow the horn. That was Oscar for you, I guess. But the thing was, Charlie knew Julian - he had met him in Florida, and knew that he could play. So Charlie said to Oscar that Julian didn't want anybody else to be blowing his horn, but he would sit in instead. Now, Oscar wasn't real happy about that, but he let him come up, then he called I'll Remember April at a real fast tempo. I'm talking murderous, man. And Julian just flew across the top, and left everybody with their mouths hanging open.”

When the saxophonist produced an equally dazzling performance on Pettiford's Bohemia After Dark, the bassist offered him a gig, and the word went around the New York musicians that a hot new property was in town.

Kenny Clarke, the drummer in Pettiford's band, had a record date for Savoy scheduled at the end of June, and invited both Adderley brothers to take part. It featured a variation on Pettiford's band, minus the leader, with Donald Byrd (trumpet), Jerome Richardson (tenor sax and flute), and a rhythm section of Horace Silver (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Clarke.

Savoy grabbed the chance to record a second session in July, this time under the saxophonist's own name, before he signed to EmArcy Records. It featured a quintet in which the brothers were joined by Hank Jones (piano), Chambers and Clarke.

The Savoy material was later collected as Spontaneous Combustion: The Savoy Sessions, and included two sides cut by a quartet led by Clarke on a separate date, featuring Nat but not Julian. As recording debuts go, it is not earth-shattering, but does reveal that the saxophonist was already well down the road to mastery. He sounds like a seasoned player from the outset, and on cuts like 'With Apologies To Oscar', 'Bohemia After Dark' or a lithe reading of 'Willow Weep For Me', he reveals his command of line, phrasing and rhythmic momentum, whatever the tempo.

And then there are the blues performances, Hear Me Talkin' To Ya from the first date, and Spontaneous Combustion and the slower Still Talkin' To Ya from the second. They lay down a bedrock of blues invention and expression which the saxophonist would exploit to the full in the next two decades.

As Peter Keepnews noted in his sleeve notes for the album release, 'the special value of Adderley's music was never that there was anything startlingly "new" about it, but rather that his was a style simultaneously "modern" in conception and solidly rooted in the traditions of jazz'. Those traditions included not only Charlie Parker, to whom Adderley was continuously and tiresomely compared, but also to earlier swing era stylists like Coleman Hawkins (his first hero) and especially Benny Carter.

After an initial stutter in the late-1950s, Cannonball Adderley's subsequent career brought him a great deal of success, and a great deal of rather deprecating criticism from those who saw him as selling out his jazz heritage in pursuit of it. He arguably did more than any other single musician to popularise the idea of soul jazz, and his 45 rpm single hits of the early 1960s (usually edited-down versions of album tracks, but sometimes made specifically for that purpose) conjured up an image of a much earlier phase of jazz history, but it would be entirely wrong to dismiss him as simply a populist with a shrewd feel for public taste (which is no hanging offence in any case).

Adderley followed his own musical instincts in everything he did, and they did not always coincide with the critical agendas of the day.

As Chris Sheridan points out in Dis Here: A Bio-Discography of Julian “Cannonball' Adderley, that kind of reaction is “the cross borne by many of those who consolidate rather than innovate.... Unfortunately, there is no more potent kiss of death in the eyes of so-called "purists" than a taste of popular and therefore financial success, but this cannot alter the fact that Mr Adderley's music was full of exhilaratingly naive freshness and always swung hard. As Nat has observed, he appreciated their "hits" for the security they afforded and for the people they pleased, but he always wanted the chance to “play whatever he pleased.”

The Adderley brothers had grown up in Florida, where Julian acquired his familiar nickname, said to be a corruption of “Cannibal,” inspired by his formidable appetite.

Julian Edwin Adderley was born on 15 September, 1928, and Nathaniel three years later, on 25 November, 1931 (that is the commonly accepted date, although Chris Sheridan gives it as 21 November, apparently on Nat's authority).

Their father, also Julian, was a cornetist, and started both boys on the trumpet as children. Nat stuck with it, and adopted the cornet as his horn of choice from 1950, but Julian chose to switch to saxophone, seemingly inspired by hearing Coleman Hawkins with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. Their musical careers would remain intertwined until Julian's death from a stroke while on tour on 8 August, 1975 (the saxophonist suffered from diabetes, as did Nat).

They formed their first band as youngsters (they were eleven and eight at the time), and continued to develop through school and college. After graduating, Julian took a job teaching and ran a band on the side, including a stint leading a band in the army, where his fellow musicians included Nat, trombonist Curtis Fuller and pianist Junior Mance.

Nat was the first to spread his musical wings beyond their home. In 1954, having also taken a teaching qualification, he joined Lionel Hampton's band for a time. Any further thought of teaching careers was put aside after the Bohemia debut in 1955, and both men turned their full attention to music.

Julian was signed by EmArcy Records (the label was an imprint of Mercury Records) immediately after the Savoy dates, and set about forming his first real band, with Nat on cornet.

He cut several highly manufactured sessions for his new label, including an octet date for his eponymous debut in July, 1955; a With Strings album in October of that year; a ten-piece band for In The Land of Hi-Fi in June, 1956; and an album of tunes from Duke Ellington's musical Jump For Joy, cut with trumpeter Emmett Berry, a string quartet and rhythm section in 1958, with fine arrangements by Bill Russo.

The essential musical core of his work for EmArcy, however, lay in the

sessions with his quintet, in which Nat was joined by a rhythm trio featuring Junior Mance's rolling, bluesy piano, Sam Jones on bass, and drummer Jimmy Cobb. They recorded most of the material for the albums released as Sophisticated Swing and Cannonball Enroute in February, 1957, with the sessions for Cannonball's Sharpshooters following in March, 1958. The problem was that much of this music was not released until considerably later, and the lack of support for their working quintet contributed both to its demise, and to their departure from the company. All three albums were eventually gathered on an excellent 2-CD compilation as Sophisticated Swing: The EmArcy Small-Group Sessions in 1995, along with Nat Adderley's To The Ivy League From Nat.

There was to be no immediate success story, however. A combination of inexperience and financial naivety led to the break-up of the band as a working unit in 1957. Both Julian and Nat went off to work as sidemen for a time, the trumpeter with J. J. Johnson and Woody Herman, and the saxophonist in what was to be a crucial stay with Miles Davis, in a period which encompassed the recording of Milestones and Kind of Blue, as well as Adderley's equally memorable contributions to Gil Evans' New Bottle, Old Wine for Pacific Jazz in 1958, and the joint Davis-Evans classic Porgy and Bess, also in 1958. Adderley also had the chance to join Dizzy Gillespie at that point, but told Ira Gitler in 1959 (quoted in Ashley Khan's Kind of Blue) that his decision to plump for Miles had two motivating factors: “I had two things in mind. I had the commercial thing in view, like I wanted to get the benefit of Miles's exposure ... I figured I could learn more than with Dizzy. Not that Dizzy isn't a good teacher, but he played more commercially than Miles. Thank goodness I made the move I did.”

The trumpeter initially hired Adderley for his quintet, because, according to the saxophonist, “he didn't dig any of the tenor players around and Trane had left.” Coltrane then returned to the band, making up the famous sextet on Kind of Blue. In his autobiography, Miles explained that he saw the possibility of developing a “new kind of feeling” by exploiting the contrast between “Cannonball's blues-rooted alto sax up against Trane's harmonic, chordal way of playing, his more free-form approach,” a wish which was handsomely fulfilled. Adderley's albums with Miles and Evans undoubtedly constitute some of the highest peaks in his recording career, and must be considered central to any assessment of his musical standing.

Cannonball also recorded several other significant albums during his tenure in the trumpeter's band. Somethin' Else, a one-off session for Blue Note on 9 March, 1958, featured Davis in his last appearance as a sideman. The saxophonist began recording for Riverside in July, 1958, opening his account with Portrait of Cannonball with a sextet featuring another Florida hornman, trumpeter Blue Mitchell, and pianist Bill Evans. Alabama Concerto, recorded in late July and early August, 1958, was a folk-derived project originally credited to composer John Benson Brooks, but later reissued as an Adderley disc.

A more compelling date in October, 1958, teamed the altoist in a vibrant collaboration with vibraphonist Milt Jackson on Things Are Getting Better, a relaxed, swinging showcase for two players imbued from top to toe in the blues. A quintet date from 3 February, 1959, originally issued as Cannonball Adderley Quintet In Chicago and subsequently reissued as Cannonball and Coltrane, featured Miles's band minus its leader (a similar personnel completed a Paul Chambers session for Veejay on the same day).

Just before leaving the trumpeter's employ, he cut another Riverside date in April-May, 1959, released as Cannonball Takes Charge. Several of these sessions would certainly fall into any list of his most important discs.

The experience gained in the two years of that association with Miles had helped the saxophonist mature into an even more fully rounded player, and he re-emerged ready for the challenge of leading his own band again in 1959, albeit in a very different musical direction to the modal explorations which characterised Kind of Blue.

His recordings had already established his credentials as an alto saxophonist with an equally secure grip on driving bop tunes, blues and ballads, an irresistible sense of swing, and an alto sound which had something of Charlie Parker's diamond-hard luminescence, mixed in beautifully proportioned fashion with the rich, buttery elegance of Benny Carter, the occasional whiff of an earthy, jump band saltiness, and a touch of sanctified gospel feel. Those were the classic constituents of hard bop, and Adderley was about to establish himself as the most popular exponent of the genre.

The sound which would give him his most overt commercial success had already been prefigured on funky tunes like Nat's compositions Another Kind of Soul on Sophisticated Swing and That Funky Train on Cannonball Enroute, Sam Jones's Blue Funk from Portrait of Cannonball, or Julian's own Wabash from In Chicago.

It was their version of Bobby Timmons' This Here (aka 'Dis Here') which really caught on big, however, and helped move the band onto another plane, in commercial terms at least. The tune was taken from their Riverside album Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco, record at the Jazz Workshop in October, 1959, with a band which featured Nat on cornet, Timmons on piano, Sam Jones on bass, and Louis Hayes on drums. Orrin Keepnews had promised Adderley that he would record the band whenever the saxophonist felt ready, and remained true to his word when he received an excited call to report how well things were going in the four week stint at the Workshop.

The live recording was born of necessity (the availability of an appropriate studio in San Francisco) rather than careful planning, and proved to be one of those serendipitous masterstrokes which can arise in apparently unpromising circumstances. It opened in unconventional fashion with a lengthy spoken introduction from the saxophonist, which, among other things, established the verbal authority for the Dis Here version of the title in the course of his oration on soul. His verbal rapport with his audience was a feature of his style, and an indication of his ability to communicate easily and directly with them. An affable personality may have helped grease the wheels (and infuriate the purists), but it was the music in all its funky, soulful, swinging joy which established the LP as an even bigger seller than the single, and propelled the saxophonist onto another level of stardom.

Our culture predisposes us to link artistry with suffering, a stereotype which

Adderley gleefully pushed aside. Chris Sheridan puts it thus: “Unlike some jazz musicians, his style was a mirror image of his personality: large, eloquent, outgoing and above all predisposed to the sunnier side of life, despite a rare eloquence in interpretation of jazz's most basic material, the blues. It was a sense of optimism in much of his playing that echoed that of trumpeter Clifford Brown. Neglecting his gifts with the blues, many commentators thus wrote him off as of narrow emotional range.”

His effusive music had a verbose, easy going lyricism which permeates the San Francisco date, and retains its charm largely intact. In addition to Dis Here, the album included a great take of Spontaneous Combustion and a version of Bohemia After Dark, Adderley's own You Got It, and Randy Weston's Hi-Fly, while later issues added Monk's Straight, No Chaser. It is solid, swinging and unpretentious stuff, but with much powerful, inventive and expressive jazz improvisation along the way.

It was the harbinger of much to come in a similar vein. Timmons had not been his first choice as pianist when he was putting the new quintet together - he had offered the job to Phineas Newborn, but the pianist would only agree to join the band if he received featured billing, and Nat already had that (the band was always billed as “The Cannonball Adderley Quintet featuring Nat Adderley”). Timmons proved a fortunate alternative, and although he did not stay long in the group, he not only provided them with that initial hit, but also its follow-up, Dat Dere, drawn from a session on 1 February,1960, shortly after Nat Adderley had cut his own best known tune, Work Song (aka 'The Work Song'). It is one of the most archetypal of all hard bop compositions, and appeared on his own album of that name, along with another hard bop classic, Julian's Sack o' Woe.

In a precise parallel with his brother, the cornetist had also signed to Riverside after cutting albums with Savoy and EmArcy, and chose an unusual line-up for what became his classic album. His cornet was featured alongside guitarist Wes Montgomery, who had been recommended to Orrin Keepnews by Cannonball the previous year and was cutting The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery back-to-back with this session, and either Sam Jones or Keter Belts on cello. Not all the manipulations of personnel were quite as planned - as Orrin Keepnews revealed in his reminiscence on Nat in The View From Within, the two cuts with no piano resulted from Bobby Timmons dropping out “on account of a little drinking.”

Work Song was recorded in January, 1960, and contains some of Nat Adderley's finest playing on record outside of his brother's bands. It was one of several albums he cut for the label, including Branching Out in 1958, with saxophonist Johnny Griffin and the trio known as The Three Sounds (comprising pianist Gene Harris, bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Bill Dowdy), and That's Right, a 1960 date with a five-strong saxophone section, as well as the subtly arranged Much Brass with trombonist Slide Hampton from 1959. He was never a great virtuoso, but evolved a distinctive signature on cornet, blending a rich tone and earthy warmth with the horn's inherent touch of astringency to great effect, and developed an individual and expressive voice of his own, which included a sparing but effective use of the very low registers of the horn, as well as lip-busting explorations at the opposite end of its range.

The early 1960s were a busy and productive time for the Adderley brothers.  Despite receiving lucrative offers elsewhere, Adderley remained with Riverside until the label's demise in 1964, and neither he nor Keepnews was about to ignore a winning gambit. His remaining albums for the label included several more live sets, including The Cannonball Adderley Quintet at The Lighthouse in 1960, with English pianist Victor Feldman now installed at the piano, doubling on vibes. The saxophonist then expanded his group to a sextet in 1961, adding saxophonist Yusef Lateef to the personnel, while the Austrian pianist Joe Zawinul took over the stool he would occupy for a decade, before moving on to Weather Report via Miles Davis.

The choice of a second white European pianist brought Adderley some flack from those who felt his band should give preference to black cats, but, like Miles, he was colour blind when it came to music, although he was active in support of civil rights issues. The sextet are featured on Cannonball Adderley Sextet In New York, cut at the Village Vanguard in January, 1962; Jazz Workshop Revisited, a return to the scene of earlier triumphs in September, 1962, which introduced another of Nat's best known compositions, The Jive Samba; Cannonball In Europe, recorded in August, 1962, but not released at the time (other live material from European tours of that period has also surfaced on the Pablo, OJC and TCB labels); and Nippon Soul, cut in Tokyo in July, 1963 (again, other concert recordings have also emerged on various labels from that tour).

His studio albums for Riverside included Them Dirty Blues, the album cut on 1 February, 1960, which featured Dat Dere; The Poll Winners, the only recorded meeting of Adderley and Wes Montgomery in May-June, 1960; Know What I Mean?, a rare quartet date from 1961 named for one of the saxophonist's favourite catch phrases, with Bill Evans on piano, and the MJQ-derived team of Percy Heath and Connie Kay; The Cannonball Adderley Quintet Plus, a fine session from May, 1961, with pianist Wynton Kelly augmenting the quintet, allowing Feldman to play more vibes than usual; African Waltz, a 1961 album with a big band accompaniment; and the self-explanatory Cannonball's Bossa Nova, a cash-in on a current fad from December, 1962, which had the merit of using a Brazilian group that included pianist Sergio Mendes and drummer Dom Um Romao.

The stability of personnel undoubtedly contributed to making the Adderley Sextet one of the great ensembles in all modern jazz. Lateef, whose instruments included flute and oboe as well as tenor saxophone, was, like drummer Louis Hayes, a native of Detroit (bassist Sam Jones, on the other hand, belonged to the Florida contingent). He had cut his teeth with the likes of Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie in the late 1940s, but was also given to a more experimental impulse which was reflected in his work with Mingus prior to joining the sextet, and in his own subsequent albums for Impulse! and Atlantic in the 1960s and 1970s. His earlier discs, including sessions for Riverside and Prestige, had been relatively more straight-ahead affairs (although often with a distinct Eastern flavour in the music, as in The Centaur and The Phoenix from 1960, or Eastern Sounds the following year), and he was on the cusp of a more outward bound approach in his two years with the sextet, from late 1961 to 1964.

His introduction not only added depth to the ensemble and a new, distinctive and occasionally disruptive voice and tonal colour to the band's front line, but sparked the two resident hornmen to even greater efforts. Lateef also brought a striking variation into the band's repertoire, introducing compositions which stretched their music in unaccustomed directions. That was evident right from the outset on In New York, cut only three weeks after he joined the band (although he already sounds pretty much at home). Challenging compositions like Planet Earth and Syn-anthesia on that album, or Brother John, his tribute to John Coltrane featured on Nippon Soul, nestle a little uncomfortably amid the more amiable blowing vehicles, but bring a newly charged dimension to the music which was heightened by his more 'out' approach on all of his instruments.

The tension which his contributions brought to the music generally worked well as a contrast with the band's more settled directions, and often produced dramatic responses from his colleagues, while Zawinul fitted sweetly into a unit which boasted one of the best rhythm sections around in Jones and Hayes, who laid down a relentlessly swinging and superbly focused rhythmic foundation under everything the band did. The pianist contributed a great deal of material to the band's book in his long tenure with them, on both the more populist and the more advanced facets of their music. Zawinul recalled the feel of the band for Brian Glasser's book In A Silent Way.

“We did nothing but work, man, 46-47 weeks a year, and often under the best circumstances. A lot of the time we really had fantastic fun. In Europe, I hadn't had a chance to play bebop, and Cannonball was the first gig where I could really stretch out, a solo on every tune. I feel Sam Jones and Louis Hayes were really instrumental in my really getting down with this. Sam Jones is one of the greatest walkers of all time, and Louis has one of the gifted right hands - his cymbal beat is dangerous. And though I was still green for a while, Cannonball would let me play trio tunes with Sam and Louis. In Philadelphia, in a club where it's 90 per cent black, I'm playing my shit and we have those people on their chairs. I used to check out how people accepted me, and it showed me I was right to do this.”

The demise of Riverside took Adderley to Capitol, where he continued to rack up commercial successes, opening his account with (surprise) a live album, Cannonball Adderley - Live!, recorded in August, 1964, with a young Charles Lloyd replacing Lateef on tenor. His tenure with Capitol produced around twenty albums, many of which were forgettable by comparison with his earlier work. The creeping sense of relying on formulaic solutions which was evident even in the Riverside years became more and more marked as the decade progressed. Nonetheless, there was also much strong stuff emerging. He scored further successes with tunes like Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, which provided his biggest hit of all in 1966, and Country Preacher in 1969, both prime slices of greasy, sanctified funk written by Zawinul.

He experimented with a flavour of African drumming on Accent On Africa in 1968, and with electronics on The Price You Got To Pay To Be Free in 1970 (among others), played soprano now and then, and chipped in the occasional vocal, as did Nat. He renewed his association with Orrin Keepnews when he signed to the Fantasy label in 1973, and cut solid albums like Inside Straight (1973) and Phenix (1975), a double LP which looked back to many of his classic tunes with various members of his past bands, and carried the odd intimation of a more radical direction which was always part of his work, notably in his solo on a remake of 74 Miles Away, a modal tune by Zawinul which the pianist described as “a very natural groove based on just one chord” -  A flat minor. It was originally recorded in 1967 on an album of that name, and stands alongside tunes like Hippodelphia or Rumplestiltskin as one of Zawinul's more exploratory pieces for the band.

Bass player Walter Booker confirmed the tension which simmered between the pianist and the more conservative Nat Adderley over the direction of their music, and eventually led to Zawinul's moving on at the end of 1970. He told Brian Glasser that Zawinul was responsible for the direction in which the music was going in the late 1960s, but “Joe always wanted to go further and do more, and Nat was holding it back,” while the leader took a middle position and reaped the musical benefits:

“Cannon moved on in a number of ways, but Nat was a straight-down-the-middle sort of guy - that was the way his tastes ran. He and Cannon never had any overt problems with it, because they did a tremendous job of adjusting to each other, which is not always automatic between brothers. So to say there was a certain amount of pull between Joe and Nat is quite accurate. ... Cannonball's personality was a very relaxed one. He was not gonna get uptight about musical differences. He'd find a way to work things out ... and if the way to work it out was to step back and let these guys bounce off each other, what the hell!”

Cannonball was at work on an album at the time of his unexpected and sadly premature death at the age of forty-six. The saxophonist's career had traced a parabola described succinctly by Chris Sheridan:

“He began more loved by musicians than by critics, and ended more loved by the public than by the critics. In between was an intense period when, first with Miles Davis, then with his own re-formed quintet, Cannonball was lauded by all camps.”

If the saxophonist was always ready to toss in one of his stock licks, it was not because he could think of nothing else to play -he did so because he enjoyed playing them, and liked the way they sounded, which just about sums up his philosophy when it came to making music.

Orrin Keepnews described him as:

“ … one of the most completely alive human beings I had ever encountered;  a big man and a joyous man, intensely loyal to his associates, but also the kind of star who volunteered his services as a sideman (at union scale) for the record dates of men he liked and respected like Jimmy Heath, Kenny Dorham, Philly Joe Jones. He came up with the idea of his producing albums that would present either unknown newcomers or underappreciated veterans; he felt that his name might help their careers (Chuck Mangione first recorded as a Cannonball Adderley 'presentation').”

Whatever the tensions and frustrations, Joe Zawinul was in no doubt about the leader's merits, and as a leading musician who worked closely with the saxophonist for a decade, was well placed to reflect on them when asked to compile a CD anthology in the late 1990s: “Cannonball is one of the greatest musicians of all time. I played with him nine and a half years, and not one time did I hear him searching for something on the horn. Not that he wasn't improvising, but his reaction time was so quick. You never felt he was looking for it. He hardly ever practised. There was no reason for him to practise. And Cannon's tone! I played with the guy, but I'm not a music listener who sits around and plays old albums, so when I listened to his recordings it was his tone that struck me first. It was just awesome. His sound in the lower register is so beautiful, and the sound didn't get skinny going up. Some players sound nice in the bottom then go up, and they don't have it. Cannonball had the most beautiful control of his entire instrument.”

With the notable exception of Julian's work with Miles, however, the Adderleys rarely sounded better than when they were blowing together on some sweet, strong, funky hard bop, or putting the soul in soul jazz.

This piece draws heavily from the following bibliography: Chris Sheridan Dis Here: A Bio-Discography of Julian Cannonball Adderley , Cary Ginell, Walk Tall: The Music and Life of Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, Ashley Khan's Kind of Blue, Kenny Mathieson, Cookin’: Hard Bop and Soul Jazz, 1954-1965, Orrin Keepnews, The View from Within, Brian Glasser, In A Silent Way and numerous liner and insert notes by a wide variety of authors.