Cannonball Adderley "Swingin' in Seattle: Live at the Penthouse (1966-1967)"

[JSngry]

What all this about nuts and Adderleys?

 

[AllenLowe]

I remain sonically wary; since Zev botched the Wes Montgomery with distortion-inducing noise reduction. Can we hear a sample?

[soulpope]

Further details ....:

Track Listing: 

Jim Wilke Intro (0:13)
Big "P" (8:49) 
Spoken Outro (0:24)
Spoken Introduciton (0:14)
The Girl Next Door (11:10)
Spoken Introduction (0:48)
Sticks (4:33)
Spoken Outro (0:06)
Spoken Introduction (0:12)
The Morning of the Carinval (Manhã de Carnaval) (10:44)
Spoken Outro (0:12)
Spoken Introduction (0:34)
Somewhere (5:04)
Jim Wilke Intro (0:16)
74 Miles Away (10:38)
Spoken Outro (0:31)
Back Home Blues (6:46)
Hippodelphia (10:44)
Set-Closing Outro (0:57)

Personnel: 
Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley - alto saxophone
Nat Adderley - cornet
Joe Zawinul - piano
Victor Gaskin - bass
Roy McCurdy - drums

Recorded from live radio broadcasts at the Penthouse Jazz Club in Seattle, WA on June 15 & 22, 1966 and October 6 & 13, 1967.

[JSngry]

10+ minutes of Hippodelphia has the potential to be a very good thing...

How long had Gaskin been in the band? Nobody would ever be as perfect a fit as Walter Booker, imo, but Gaskin did alright.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Normally I'd jump on this, but I am not a huge fan of Adderley's work of this era. I keep trying to like but something about it just doesn't work for me. I used to have "Radio Nights", which is from this time period and I just didn't dig it.

I also remember buying "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" and hating Zawinul's electric piano sound. Maybe that's all it is?

[soulpope]

38 minutes ago, JSngry said:

10+ minutes of Hippodelphia has the potential to be a very good thing...

How long had Gaskin been in the band? Nobody would ever be as perfect a fit as Walter Booker, imo, but Gaskin did alright.

There is a japanese Joker LP with a live performance in Milano/Italy form March(?) 1969 with Victor Gaskin still part of the group ....

[JSngry]

Yeah, I got that one. Do we know why Booker was away? Because he came back. Health/legal problems that took a year or two to resolve? Or did he just want a break?

I think these were Cannonball's best years as a player, from about 1965 up to the end. He had slowly, leisurely almost, but surely figured out all he had heard out of Coltrane standing next to him for however long that was and incorporated that into his own thing.

Best years as a player, but not always as a record-maker. I've accrued all those Capitol records, and on some of them...there's never any that don't have at least one moment (and some have considerably more than a moment), but one moment does not a record make. But unlike Kevin, I really dug Radio Nights, because it was NOT a record, Money In the Pocket from a few years ago, that was fine, probably because it never turned into a record.

So for me, this sounds like a good nexus of band/time/repertoire/non-production. Optimistic!

[jlhoots]

If you want a Cannonball semi-obscurity go for One For Daddy-O - it's a Dutch Jazz Archives issue.

[Guy Berger]

6 hours ago, JSngry said:

I think these were Cannonball's best years as a player, from about 1965 up to the end. He had slowly, leisurely almost, but surely figured out all he had heard out of Coltrane standing next to him for however long that was and incorporated that into his own thing.

A lot of this is probably due to sharing stage space with Yusef Lateef and Charles Lloyd during 1962-64.  They added a depth and gravitas to the band that wasn't there before, and when they departed, Cannonball had to pick up the slack - couldn't do the "empty calories" thing anymore.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Guy Berger

[medjuck]

What  cd from this period do any of you recommend? ( I gotta admit I like him best when he's with Coltrane. ) 

[Larry Kart]

36 minutes ago, medjuck said:

What  cd from this period do any of you recommend? ( I gotta admit I like him best when he's with Coltrane. ) 

This one is intense:
https://www.amazon.com/Radio-Nights-Cannonball-Adderley/dp/B00006J40V/ref=sr_1_151?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1539309274&sr=1-151&keywords=cannonball+adderley

 

 

[JSngry]

Yes to Radio Nights as well as Live! & Money In The Pocket. The former is with Charles Lloyd, the latter with Herbie Lewis(!!!!).

   

And I'll go to the mat for both The Price You Got To Pay To Be Free & The Black Messiah, but if you're not ready for a bunch of all-over-the-place-ness, then tread lightly. But for my money, those are the records that show just how much Cannonball was happy to lose the "saxophone star" thing and to fully embrace the role of "cultural marketplace" for his presentation. That didn't delight everybody, but I love those records in a way I don't love his others. Not more love, just different love.

[king ubu]

8 hours ago, JSngry said:

Yes to Radio Nights as well as Live! & Money In The Pocket. The former is with Charles Lloyd, the latter with Herbie Lewis(!!!!).

   

...

Haven't really explored "Radio Nights", but the other two, yeah  (though Lloyd - respect and all - somehow always seems like the lightweight version of "deep" to me ... which is an art of its own I guess but not one I'm all that keen on, so far).

Also, I've loooong have had a weak spot for this:

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, king ubu said:

(though Lloyd - respect and all - somehow always seems like the lightweight version of "deep" to me ... ).

I think that's completely fair - and accurate. I myself think he didn't really mature/deepen/whatever until later in life, right around the time he started recording for ECM.

[Peter Friedman]

It is interesting to me to see what a number of those here believe to be Cannonball's prime period.

My opinion is quite different from what many have said.

The Cannonball I like best is from the 50's up through 1963. His recordings on Riverside were far more to my taste than most of what he did on Capitol and beyond. I can enjoy a couple of his Capitol sessions, but much prefer his Riverside recordings. 

 

[JSngry]

He made better records for riverside (mostly), no doubt. But I think he was a better player after he went to Capitol. Tone richened, fingers loosened up, harmonic palate expanded, everything. Not right at first, but not long thereafter. It's a drag that those two parts of his career never quite lined up, better player AND better records, although he made money all the way, gotta be happy about that. Too many people don't.

[soulpope]

Grew up with "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" .... but very dear to my heart remains "Live In San Francisco" ....

[felser]

8 hours ago, soulpope said:

Grew up with "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" .... but very dear to my heart remains "Live In San Francisco" ....

Growing up, I at first thought he was covering a Buckingham's song .

[soulpope]

Just now, felser said:

Growing up, I at first thought he was covering a Buckingham's song .

....

[AllenLowe]

I'm with Jim on Cannonball - his very late things show a real start to changing his approach, even if in subtle ways; maybe partly the result of his cocaine years, but the later live things with Ammons, Black Messiah, show a radically changing musical consciousness, more aggressive, less worried about lyricism. Also, as his ideas changed, so did his use of chromaticism, which is somewhat essential to that kind of near-polytonalism.

[JSngry]

I really dig how he developed from a guy who at times had more ways of saying things than he had things to say into somebody who recognized that it was never over and proceeded accordingly. He stealthed the shit out of it, didn't always lead with his evolution, but he didn't hide it either. For whatever reason he made those records, and for whatever reason people bought them at one point or another, they were going to get a dose of the evolution of Cannonball Adderley's actual playing.

and I also dig how he could have done what so many people choose to do, which is to just hire new people to sound like your old people ao that you can sound like your old sell because that's your only self.

So different than 1959, not better (or worse), just evolved, matured..older in the good way.

[felser]

Yes, greatly appreciate that he didn't stand still.  I don't much care for an album like "The Price You Got To Pay To Be Free", find it an indulgent mess, but I find it an INTERESTING indulgent mess, and it beats an attempted 1970 rerun of "Portrait of Cannonball".  I do like "The Happy People" with Flora Purim. 

[Peter Friedman]

5 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

I'm with Jim on Cannonball - his very late things show a real start to changing his approach, even if in subtle ways; maybe partly the result of his cocaine years, but the later live things with Ammons, Black Messiah, show a radically changing musical consciousness, more aggressive, less worried about lyricism. Also, as his ideas changed, so did his use of chromaticism, which is somewhat essential to that kind of near-polytonalism.

Allen you just did an excellent job of explaining why I much preferred Cannonball's earlier playing. 

[JSngry]

I guess you like it more than Cannonball did.

[king ubu]

I can relate to better albums/better player very well indeed. And to "ways of saying"/"things to say" as well.

Favourite album, pressured to name one (that is, one besides "Somethin' Else", of course ) would probably be "Nippon Soul" or "Cannonball in Europe", both with the sextet w/Lateef, which is easily my favourite band of his (though the earlier quintet with Timmons and then Feldman comes close). However, the in-the-pocket groove of the mid/late 60s band and then Cannon's very, very good playing on top ... it took me a while to get to the point ("Live in Japan" was one early exception, "Mercy Mercy Mercy" never did as much for me back then) ... is an alltogether satisfying experience.