Cannonball Adderley: Know What I Mean?

It must have seemed like a winning combination at the time; Evans and Addereley, two contributors to the Kind Of Blue album, paired with the bassist and drummer from the Modern Jazz Quartet. Unfortunately the results are less than stellar, resulting in a merely good album instead of a classic one. In actuality Evans and Adderley, removed from the guiding force of Miles, have little in common with one another; Evans was certainly the most important ingredient in the modal experiments of Kind of Blue, but Adderley seemed more at home in the hard bop of Milestones. Evans tries to give his comping more punch to compensate for Adderley’s fluttering, bluesy choruses, but only proves that songs like “Waltz For Debby” require the more delicate approach used on the original. However, none of these players are capable of turning in a lackluster performance, and the occasional bursts of sunshine result in a perfectly enjoyable recording.

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