The Blue Note Years of Dizzy Reece by Tony Hall, Leonard Feather, Ira Gitler and Michael Cuscuna

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

“Reece is the opposite of the performer who aims only for effects he is certain of attaining…his fondness for wide intervals and the grasp of dynamics gives his lines true dramatic strength.”

- British critic Michael James, in reviewing Dizzy’s Blues In Trinity LP (Blue Note 4006),

In case you haven’t looked at it in a while, the subheading for the JazzProfiles blog reads - “Focused Profiles on Jazz and its Creators while also Featuring the Work of Guest Writers and Critics on the Subject of Jazz.  [Emphasis mine].

I’ve been learning about Jazz from a wide variety of Jazz musicians, authors and critics for over 60 years, so why stop now - right?

As is our wont, when the editorial staff at JazzProfiles decides on a feature, it generally makes a search of the Jazz literature in an attempt to offer you a number of different opinions and perspectives on the subject at hand.

Such is the case with this profile of trumpeter, composer and bandleader Dizzy Reece for which we’ve enlisted the aid of Tony Hall, Leonard Feather, Ira Gitler and Michael Cuscuna. Not coincidentally, they are also the composers of the liner/insert notes for the four recordings that Dizzy made for Blue Note from 1958 - 1960.

I first heard Dizzy on Suite Sixteen: The Music of Victor Feldman - Big Band/Quartet/Septet [Contemporary C3541/OJCCD 1728-2] which was a 1958 LP that Lester Koenig, always a big fan of Victor’s, released in 1958 made up of recordings by Feldman’s various groups that Mike Butcher and Tony Hall had produced in London in 1955.

Through a longstanding association with Victor, beginning in the years when he was the resident pianist and vibraphonist at the Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach, CA he made me aware of other recordings that he made with Dizzy in London some of which have been released on Jasmine CD reissue of Tempo LPs including Victor Feldman Departure Dates [Jasmine JASCD 609], Victor Feldman in London Volume I [Jasmine JASCD 622] and Victor Feldman in London Volume II [Jasmine JASCD 625].

The first thing that struck me about Dizzy Reece’s playing - notwithstanding his nickname [his given first name is Alphonso] - is that he doesn’t sound like anyone else.

Or as Richard Cook and Brian Morton state in their Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.: “Reece wasn’t a bruising player, he kept the fireworks under restraint, even as snapping little phrases suddenly broke out of his line of thought. … [His playing] has lots of rough edges …. Reece is difficult to pin down stylistically. Thought he can play skyrocketing top-note lines, there’s something curiously melancholy about his work. … [He is] a dedicated practitioner whose work has been unjustly neglected in recent years.”

Tony Hall, the producer who more than anyone was responsible for bringing Dizzy to the attention of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff and the resulting four LPs that Dizzy would make for the label between 1958-1960 as leader said of Dizzy’s approach:

“When discussing a musician new to the American record-buying public, it’s customary for the annotator to write at length about his various influences.  I find this very difficult with Diz. I’ve been listening to him for five years now. I’ve watched his technique improve. At one time, it was a question of digging what he was thinking more than what he played.  But now his thoughts are coming out of the bell of his horn with clarity. To me, he has always sounded like just himself. “Sure I’ve listened to lots of trumpet players” he says. “But I just feel my music this way.  My playing is like my way of life. It’s a religion”.

He’s basically a “hot” player.  Sometimes his lines are simple: at others, naggingly multi-notedly complex.  “But if people are looking for something mysterious or sensational in my playing they won’t find it.  I just like to play”. He has a tremendous – often starkly dramatic – feeling for dynamics. This sense of drama in his playing is accentuated by his use of unusual intervals and accenting of notes. “- Blues in Trinity [Blue Note BST 84006 - B2 32093]

Writing in Dizzy’s second Blue Note recording - Star Bright [BST 84023 TOCJ-4023] - Leonard Feather offered these quotations from Dizzy about the source of his original approach to trumpet:

"My father was a pianist; he played in silent movie theatres, but I hardly ever got to hear him play.  My inspiration came from the street parade bands in Kingston.  I was only three years old when I started running out trying to follow them - I would disappear for hours until they had to send the police for me.  Then when I was about seven I would stay out late at night just to listen to a trumpet player called Gabriel, who was working in a club.  I would wait around just to be able to pack up his instrument for him. Just to get hold of the trumpet.

"I wished I could explain how I felt the first time I heard the sound of the trumpet.  The uncanny part about it is hearing the trumpet in a brass band.  Coming from a brass band it is usually loud and brassy, but I didn't hear it like that at all.  I have been trying ever since to play it the exact way.  I hear it, but it's still a long way from perfection.  The first stylist I really listened to was Buck Clayton on the old Basie records, but I always tried to get my own sound; you have to be your own man."

Leonard went on to proffer:

“The emergence of Dizzy Reece as an important new name in jazz should help to draw further attention to the fact that good jazz music and be produced by a person born to do so, regardless of latitude or longitude. 

Subjected to the environment he could find during the past few years in London or Paris, there was no obstacle to the development of a completely mature jazz style on the part of any musician with the soul, the technique and the desire for self-expression.  Dizzy Reece has these qualities in abundance, and even in the rat race of the New York jazz world he now faces, there isn't a chance in the world that they will be neglected or lost.”

Ira Gitler stepped up for the notes to Soundin’ Off [BST 84033, TOCJ-9513] and offered these comments about Dizzy’s style:

“Although his direct musical lineage comes down from Gillespie, Navarro and Clifford Brown, Dizzy Reece is an individual.  “I can only say the things I live”, is his credo. When Dizzy uses the word “say” in regard to his trumpet playing, it is extremely appropriate because he does talk through his horn.  He is further proof that certain instruments are a continuation of the human voice. “The saxophone gets the fluidity. It’s harder to do on the trumpet – the circle…”, he says, referring to a continuous flow of sound, running back into itself, that saxophonists can achieve.

“The only thing that is bugging me is the mastery of the horn and you never really get that up to the grave.”  I might add that this is a relative mastery because Reece is so conversant with his trumpet that he is able to evoke sounds which are not found in any exercise book.  Sometimes he gets a bubbling, gargling sound that seems to emanate from underwater. It bears no relation to Shep Fields. This and other “vocal” effects make Dizzy’s style very personal.

Dizzy states, philosophically, “Sometimes you speak fluently, sometimes you don’t.  But every effort must be conscious. I can sit back and play the same things I played before and be asleep.  But I don’t think that way.” …

There are places where Reece appears to be hitting wrong notes.  This was my reaction when I first listened to the album. Then I thought, “An intelligent, conscientious musician wouldn’t let mistakes like these pass.  Could he be playing these notes on purpose?” When I asked him, he bore out my second contention.

“I’m working on quarter tones and eighth tones between the notes.  I can see the relativity between Eastern music and jazz”, was Dizzy’s comment.”

Which brings us to Comin’ On, Dizzy’s fourth Blue Note recording which is made up of sessions recorded in April and July of 1960, but not released until October 7, 1999 as BN B2-22019, CD 526721.

In the following insert notes which he prepared for the Mosaic Select Dizzy Reece boxed set, Michael explains how Comin’ On came about and also provides a succinct recapitulation of the highlights of Dizzy’s recording career.

© -Michael Cuscuna/Mosaic Records; copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with permission.

COMIN’ ON

“Dizzy Reece came to jazz the long way around. Born in Kingston, Jamaica on January 5, 1931, Dizzy was exposed to music early on. His father was a pianist for a movie theatre that showed silent films. Hearing parade brass bands at an early age, the sound of the trumpet captured his soul. Eventually records by Basie with Buck Clayton and Don Byas drew him to jazz. He took up the baritone horn at 11, switching to trumpet three years later. In 1948, the desire to play jazz and the growth of the new music known as be-bop drew him to a larger playing field, Europe.  By 1954, with a well-developed style of his own very much and a big, brilliant tone, he settled in London.

Jazz dj, journalist and producer Tony Hall, a man who still has incredibly open and interested ears, began producing an excellent series of albums by Reece (as well as Victor Feldman, Tubby Hayes and others) for the Tempo label in 1955. Some of Reece's Tempo masters were issued in U.S. on Imperial and Savoy and an album of Feldman’s sessions with Reece came out on Contemporary, but with little impact. Tony sent records to friends in America. At least two, Miles Davis and Alfred Lion, were impressed. Lion arranged for Hall to produce a Reece session for Blue Note with label regulars Donald Byrd and Art Taylor in the line-up. Because of inflexible, protectionist laws enacted by the British musicians' union, the August 24, 1958 session held at Decca Studios in London had to be portrayed as being done in Paris.  The great reception that the album Blues In Trinity received gave Reece the courage to move to New York, a place where he'd been yearning to make music, where he'd find rhythm sections that could not only keep up, but also challenge him.

He arrived on October 21, 1959 and was at Rudy Van Gelder's studio, making his second Blue Note album, Star Bright on November 19. Taylor was again on drums and the group was completed by Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly and Paul Chambers. A few days prior, Reece recorded with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, playing congas on two tunes for a date that was ultimately released in 1980 as Africaine; it was Wayne Shorter's first session. Blue Note even staged a welcoming party at Well's in Harlem for the new arrival to these shores, a rather extravagant gesture for a struggling, independent label.

Dizzy's next session on April 3, 1960 produced the first 5 tracks on this CD, issued here for the first time. It was also the first Blue Note appearance by Stanley Turrentine, then with Max Roach and soon to become a Blue Note artist. The rhythm section belonged to the Jazz Messengers of that time: Bobby Timmons, Jymie Merritt and Art Blakey.  Reece's originals show a jazz composer with an unusual gift for melody. The Case Of The Frightened Lover is particularly memorable. Achmet, which opens with Reece on congas and Blakey trading solos and engaging in dialogues, is a minor tune that's derived from an Algerian melody. Ye Olde Blues is just that. Reece has a marvelous sense of construction, letting Turrentine's tenor solo lead things off before the theme is played. It might have been this tenor solo that inspired Lion to use Turrentine on Jimmy Smith's Back At The Chicken Shack/Midnight Special session three weeks later. The non-originals are a bright treatment of Tenderly and the Spanish song The Story Of Love.

A month later, Dizzy did a quartet date with Walter Bishop, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor, which was promptly issued as Soundin' Off.

Then on July 17 came the session that closes this CD. Stanley Turrentine returns, but tenor saxophonist Musa Kaleem is added to the front line. The rhythm section is Duke Jordan, Sam Jones and Al Harewood. While these proceedings probably led to Reece and Turrentine as the front line for Duke Jordan's Flight To Jordan the following month, nothing from this date was issued until now.

Musa Kaleem, who'd played with Mary Lou Williams and Fletcher Henderson as Orlando Wright in the early '40s, was on the original Art Blakey's Messengers date for Blue Note in 1947. After years away from music, he played flute on a Tiny Grimes-Coleman Hawkins album for Prestige in 1958 and then toured and recorded with James Moody. After this Reece session, little is known of his professional activities except that Horace Silver recorded his Sanctimonious Sam in 1963 (the track remained unissued until 1978).

Kaleem plays flute on the melody of Goose Dance and is the first tenor soloist on that tune and Comin' On. He has a bigger, more hollow sound than Turrentine, who solos first on Reece's sensational  Sands. Both lay out for the quartet reading of The Things We Did Last Summer.

Clearly, the April 3 session had come into doubt as worthy of release by this time. Reece tried Achmet and The Case Of The Frightened Lover with this sextet, but the results were frayed, truly rejected performances.  The first attempts proved far more successful.

Dizzy's association with Blue Note faded after 1960. In 1962, he made Asia Minor for Prestige, re-recording Achmet and The Story Of Love. Lack of steady work in New York made him a transoceanic commuter by necessity. In 1968, Reece was a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s Reunion Big Band, which toured Europe and made an album for MPS. 1969 was a particularly active year for recording, he was on Dexter Gordon's A Day In Copenhagen, also for MPS, in March, Hank Mobley's The Flip, done in Paris, in July and on the recently-released Andrew Hill nonet date Passing Ships at Van Gelder's studio in November. The Mobley and Hill dates were his last appearances on Blue Note.

Despite his considerable talents as a player and composer, Reece has only made four albums as a leader since the sixties: From In To Out with John Gilmore for Futura in Paris in 1970, Possession, Exorcism, Peace for Honey Dew in the early '70s, Manhattan Project for Bee Hive in 1978 and Blowin' Away with Ted Curson for Interplay in the same year. He was also featured on Clifford Jordan’s Inward Fire on Muse in 1978. In 1991, he toured and recorded with Jordan’s big band.

The paucity of recorded music by this unique trumpeter makes these unissued Blue Note sessions all the more valuable. And tunes like The Case Of The Frightened Lover and Sands remind us what a talented composer he is as well.”

• Michael Cuscuna, 1999 & 2003

Michel Petrucciani - One Night in Karlsruhe

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

“Over the course of this year [2009] , Dreyfus Jazz, the French-American label, will issue remastered, repackaged, and in most cases expanded versions of the ten albums that Petrucciani recorded for the label in his last years [he died on January 5, 1999 at the age of 36], as well as a two-DVD set of documentary and concert footage not previously released in this country.

The series is an overdue reminder of the ecstatic power of Petrucciani's music. I cannot think of a jazz pianist since Petrucciani who plays with such exuberance and unashamed joy. Marcus Roberts and Michel Camilo have greater technique; Bill Charlap and Eric Reed, better control; Fred Hersch has broader emotional range; Uri Caine is more adventurous. Their music provides a wealth of rewards - but not the simple pleasure of Michel Petrucciani's. With the whole business of jazz so tentative today, you would think more musicians would express some of Petrucciani's happiness to be alive.

The power Petrucciani communicated, as a pianist, was the force of a will, a muscularity of the mind. He admired and emulated Duke Ellington, but had to simulate the effect Ellington and some other strong pianists have achieved by using more of their bodies than their hands. (Ellington, like Randy Weston today, put his lower arm weight into his playing to give it extra heft.) Petrucciani generated power through the speed of his attack. His force was willed; but, in the determined gleefulness of his playing, it never sounded forced.

Giddily free as an improviser, Petrucciani trusted his impulses. If he liked the sound of a note, he would drop a melody suddenly and just repeat that one note dozens of times. His music is enveloping: he lost himself in it, and it feels like a private place where strange things can safely ensue.

Today, when so much jazz can sound cold and schematic, Petrucciani's music reminds us of the eloquence of unchecked emotion. "When I play, I play with my heart and my head and my spirit," Petrucciani once explained to an interviewer. "This doesn't have anything to do with how I look. That's how I am. I don't play to people's heads, but to their hearts. I like to create laughter and emotion from people - that's my way of working."

- David Hajdu The New Republic, March 18, 2009

“One midsummer evening in 1978, pedestrians on the narrow unpaved main street of the village of Cliousclat in the Drome region [of France] were startled when what looked like a puppet wearing Count Basie’s yachting cap leaned out of an old tinny Citroen 2 CV and exclaimed: ‘Hey, Baby!’

It was Michel Petrucciani.  At the time, they were the only words of English he knew.  But the Provencal musicians who lived in the area had spread the word about the 15-year old piano player who lived in the city of Montelimar [near Avignon] and who played Jazz like a veteran.

It’s a good thing he started early because he was not going to last all that long.” [Sadly, it was to last only twenty 20 years, but what a 20 years!]

-

- Mike Zwerin, writing in The International Herald Tribune, January 1999, a week after the death of Michel Petrucciani from a pulmonary infection at the age of thirty-six [36],  

“If the death of a musician touches us in a special way, it is because they take their secrets with them — the secret of their unique musical sound, the secret of their precise relation to space, air and the movement of their bodies that they alone knew how to produce.”

- Francis Marmande writing in La Chambre d'Amour

A number of years ago, a friend who lives in Holland, sent me a radio broadcast from a concert that took place on July 10, 1988 at Van Goghzaal at the Congress Center, The Hague, The Netherlands.

The performance was by pianist Michel Petrucciani’s trio and it was part of the 1988 North Sea Jazz Festival [NSJF]. At the time, Michel was touring with Gary Peacock on bass and Roy Haynes on drums. Some group, right?

Michel had left Paris-based Owl Records and was under contract to Blue Note and he had released five tracks with Gary and Roy as part of Michel Plays Petrucciani [Blue Note CDP 7 48679 2] which were recorded at Clinton recording Studio in NYC on September 24, 1987. Given the makeup of this version of Michel’s trio, I was very disappointed not to find more of it available on other Blue Note recordings.

Needless to say, then, I was thrilled when the 8 tracks from the radio broadcast featuring Michel, Gary and Roy at the 1988 NSJF arrived “at the editorial offices of JazzProfiles” some years ago.

And there the matter lay until Michael Bloom, who heads up his own firm which offers Jazz promotional materials to the media, contacted me and asked me if I had any interest in - wait for it - One Night in Karlsruhe - Michel Petrucciani, Gary Peacock and Roy Haynes [SWR Jazzhaus JAH-476].

Recorded on July 7th, 1988 at the jubez karlsruhe öffnungszeiten and comprised of 10 tracks totaling 77’34” of music, the album is a sheer delight from beginning to end, a veritable feast for all the senses offered up by three musicians who have achieved the highest form of Jazz expression and interpretation.

It was around this time in his career that Michel began to write original compositions to serve as the basis for his improvisations and five of these are represented on the Karlsruhe recording: 13th, One for Us, Mr. K. J., She Did It Again and La Champagne. Petrucciani helps us “set ours ears” by blending in four interpretations from the Great American Songbook - My Funny Valentine, There Will Never Be Another You, Embraceable You and In A Sentimental Mood along with one Jazz standard, John Coltrane’s Giant Steps.

If you reflect on the characteristics of Michel’s playing that are detailed by David Hajdu in the opening quotations to this posting from his piece in The New Republic, they will provide you with a number of keys to unlock, what Marmande refers to as Michel’s “secrets” as an improviser.

When Michel digs into a solo, its full speed ahead: he never repeats himself; there are no resting places; he just inventively surges ahead in an effort to seize the moment -  occupandi temporis His entire career was like that: a career of urgency.

In the following notes to One Night in Karlsruhe - Michel Petrucciani, Gary Peacock and Roy Haynes, Ralf Dombrowski expands on this later theme by labeling it -

CARPE DIEM [“Seize the day”]

“Michel Petrucciani's career had picked up speed. Some wild years were already behind him. In Paris, he not only played as a teenager with Kenny Clarke and Clark Terry, but, in addition to performing music, tried to take in as much life as possible. Some recognized his extraordinary talent: the drummer Aldo Romano and the owner of Owl Records, Jean-Jacques Pussiau, who promoted the boy with brittle-bone disease to the utmost of his abilities. But it was America that first put him on track, especially Charles Lloyd, whom he visited in California in 1982 and so impressed him that the saxophonist ended his hitherto cultivated retreat from the music business and went on tour with Petrucciani.

This band was the door opener to an international reputation. Press and colleagues became aware of him; in 1984 he settled in New York and established new social networks. Two years later, his first album for Blue Note was released: "Pianism", a recording with Palle Danielsson and Eliot Zigmund which was linked to several earlier projects with comparable ensembles. With his predilection for the piano trio as a central form of expression, Petrucciani was out of step with the mid-eighties. Although Keith Jarrett chose this option with some success, on the whole the piano tho had been considered exhausted since the death of Bill Evans.

Petrucciani was not impressed by this view and steadily engaged new partners to join him. For example, in December 1987 he entered a sound studio with Eddie Gomez and Al Foster to record some of his own compositions. A few months earlier, he had realized the same plan with Gary Peacock and Roy Haynes. The recordings were released the following year under the title "Michel Plays Petrucciani", and the pianist took some of them with him on tour. When he stopped off in Karlsruhe on 7 July 1988, he had "13th", "Mr. K.J.", "La Champagne", "One of Us" and "She Did It Again" in his musical baggage. The remainder of the program consisted of evergreens from the Great American Songbook and freestyle pieces of modem jazz such as John Coltrane's "Giant Steps".

Michel Petrucciani was a driven man, playing in his most active period more than one hundred concerts a year, with the feeling deep inside him that, given his illness [osteogenesis imperfecta, brittle bones disease] he had less time available than other people, a feeling which he repeatedly mentioned in talks with friends and journalists. He wanted to condense his music, releasing energy under tension in an awaited discharge.

The bassist Gary Peacock and the drummer Roy Haynes were the perfect partners. One had been socialized in post bop, sowed his wild oats in Free-Time and later, as a partner of Bill Evans, Paul Bley and Keith Jarrett among others, perfected his trio playing. Roy Haynes had personally experienced the birth of bebop and was one of the busiest jazz luminaries in his field.

This concentrated experience and musicality combined with Petrucciani's need for communication to form a tonal language that was extremely compact even in its redundancies and constantly conveyed immediacy.

The audience in Karlsruhe therefore experienced a jazz evening that had everything: intimacy and exaltation, subtleties and fireworks, modernism and Old School, For it was listening to a trio that played as if it were a matter of life and death - according to Petrucciani's motto: ‘to see the big picture in each moment.’”

- Ralf Dombrowski. Translated by Jonathan Uhlaner

In full flight, Michel is mesmerizing; an artist possessed. He’s one of those exceptional, electrifying musicians who comes along once in a lifetime, albeit, in his case, a very short one.

Given these circumstances, you won’t want to miss adding this recording to your collection.

In A Sentimental Mood

Giant Steps

"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.