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CANNONBALL ADDERLEY There are plenty of folks who feel that Cannonball Adderley never got his due, either, but there is no denying that time has caught up and there are few artists who are recognized to have been as influential as he was. In addition, Cannonball was a beautiful human being, a lively and engaging speaker who could connect with a nightclub audience like few other jazz musicians. That ability is documented on the Hyena release Radio Nights, as the final track features Cannonball’s monologues introducing the tunes “Oh Babe” and “Country Preacher.” The rest of the recording is a straightforward series of performances that show how well Adderley took the elements of R&B, gospel, jazz, and folk songs and combined them into a coherent whole. He is supported by a band that includes, variously, brother Nat Adderley, Charles Lloyd, Joe Zawinul, Sam Jones, Louis Hayes, and Roy McCurdy. Everything here is swinging and a superior performance. Particularly welcome is the opportunity to hear Joe Zawinul playing acoustic piano (though at times a badly tuned one!). Nat Adderley offers a heated solo on “Midnight Mood” as well. And then there’s Cannonball, offering his bop runs, beautiful alto sound, and all-encompassing funky soul phrasing. To have been present at these performances, two separate broadcasts from the Half Note Club by DJ Alan Grant. They were done the last week of 1967 and the first week of 1968, though there is some contention about whether they could have been done that late due to the appearance of Charles Lloyd on tracks 5 through 7. It scarcely matters, though, when one hears Adderley’s opening cadenza to “Stars Fell on Alabama” that leads into his beautiful take on the standard. That’s followed by a high-speed version of “Fiddler on the Roof” that would put today’s klezmer fanatics to shame. Cannonball tears through the modal changes before handing the baton to Nat, who gets some Dizzy Gillespie high note histrionics going before beginning to experiment with the rhythms of the piece. You’d hardly expect a piece like this to swing, but it certainly does. The next three tracks, “Work Song”, “The Song My Lady Sings” and “Unit Seven” are performed by Adderley’s sextet featuring tenor sax player Charles Lloyd, who also composed “The Song My Lady Sings.” “Work Song” is a perfect example of the kind of gospel-infused miniature that Adderley’s group did so well. The ensemble arrangements are tight and bolster the soloists well. Lloyd plays powerfully and provides a nice counterattack to Cannonball’s style of playing, much as John Coltrane did in the legendary Miles Davis Sextet that included Adderley. “The Song My Lady Sings” is a typically beautiful Lloyd ballad, and it allows everyone in the group to play a slower and more introspective solo as well. The group finishes with the hard-edged “Unit Seven”, which the group often used as a theme song to end their programs. The concluding track, comprised of monologues by Adderley on the blues and on Jesse Jackson, are, far from being a nuisance, are extremely entertaining. You could have listened to Cannonball declaim like this all night long. All in all, Radio Nights is a necessary addition to any Cannonball fan’s collection, providing insight into the way he could work a club audience (though there is no shortage of live Cannonball material) as well as a further illumination of the spirit of this talented man.
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