Cannonball Adderly: Burnin’ in Bordeaux: Live in France 1969

Intent on burning down the house, Burnin' in Bordeaux: Live in France 1969 finds Cannonball Adderley gleefully passing out the matches.

Captured very, very, very live at the Bordeaux Jazz Festival in March 1969, Adderley and his fired up co-arsonists—pianist Joe Zawinul, cornetist Nat Adderley, Jr., bassist Victor Gaskin, and drummer Roy McCurdy—go scorched earth from the flare-up with Zawinul's spiky ember, the uber-toned "The Scavenger." It rips, it roars. It runs wild the rapids and holds strong the ramparts. It is released in April 2024 as a special Record Store Day Limited Edition, 180 Gram 2-LP set.

In time honored Zev Feldman tradition, Burnin' in Bordeaux incorporates an extensive booklet packed with rare photos and essays by jazz author/ historian Bob Blumenthal and producer Feldman. Testimonies by McCurdy, Hal Galper, Chris Potter and Michael Wolff spike the interest. But even if these histories and testimonies are the keenest of insight, the fullest of detail, it is the music that tells the tale. Burnin' in Bordeaux is a whopper.

After twenty-eight seconds of brief, causally expectant applause, the tall tale begins. "The Scavenger" sets fire the pages of vintage aesthetics now and then. How does anyone follow something like that? With a sound check of course. Or, as Adderley thanks us for our patience while the sound amplification is adjusted in that laughing baritone that vibrated humor and ignited the rafters of the Alhambra Theatre.

Imagine for the moment the audience, en masse, nodding assurance: "Yeah, sure Cannonball, we'll wait" and that resets the stage for a sashay swagger through Antonio Carlos Jobim's salt breezed, sun stoked "Manhã de Carnaval." It epilogues neatly into baby brother's "Work Song" which, by the way, rings as true and triumphant here as it did on the 1960 Riverside album Work Song.

To describe each man's performance on this particular day in an unpredictable time is a fool's errand of highest order. After a brief moment of stand-up about Leonard Bernstein while intro'ing "Somewhere," Cannonball starts complaining about "hearing sounds that are out of sight" and well, that is why they took the stage and the audience paid for tickets. Then there is an all-out burn through another Zawinul feat of nature, "Experience In E." And this is just the allegro section, Cannonball assures in that voice again. Then he admits, we never know why one thing is more popular than another and cuts the moorings for a low down "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." A sly blues slide through Pops Staples' "Why Am I Treated So Bad." "The Scene" revels in its grooviness and abounds in joy. And there is a lot of joy abounding on Burnin' in Bordeaux.