© -
Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
The editorial
staff at JazzProfiles couldn’t agree more with author Kenny Mathieson
when he states “ … that Mr. Adderley’s Music was full of exhilaratingly naïve
freshness and always swung hard.”
A case in point
can be found in the blistering solo Cannonball uncorks on the following video
which offers associative graphics from the crackerjack production team at
CerraJazz LTD in support of an audio track featuring The
Cannonball Adderley Quintet on bassist Sam Jones’ tune – Unit 7.
The solo that
Cannonball takes from 1:00 – 2:55 minutes is full of invention, dazzling
execution and breath-taking speed. Few Jazz alto saxophonists have ever played the instrument with such facility.
In what Mr.
Mathieson calls “a model of Jazz research and scholarship,” Chris Sheridan in
his Dis
Here: A Bio-Discography of Julian “Cannonball” Adderley observes:
“Unlike some jazz
musicians, Canonball’s 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.”
Bassist Sam Jones
graciously allowed the name of his tune to be altered to Cannon’s Theme and you can hear it once again performed in the
following video tribute to Cannonball, this time with Yusef Lateef’s addition
on tenor saxophone making the group into a short-lived sextet [Charles Lloyd
had preceded him on tenor and flute].
After Cannonball
does the closing introductions, Yusef really gets it going on this version of
the tune with a rollicking solo beginning at 1:29 minutes.
