Articles

Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.

RADIO September 17, 2019

The Alto After Bird - Pepper, Woods, McLean, Adderley (1957 - 1960)

When Charlie Parker died at 34 in 1955, it was as if an ancient tree fell in the forest with the resulting sunlight promoting the growth of numerous alto saxophone progeny. Art Pepper appeared in Stan Kenton's Orchestra in 1950 and by 1953 was recording as a leader while still collaborating with West Coast colleagues like Shorty Rogers and Chet Baker. In 1957, his LP Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section signaled the maturity of a singular improviser from the ...

INTERVIEW July 22, 2019

Cannonball: A Man of the People

By Rob Rosenblum

This interview was conducted at Union College in Schenectady, New York in 1971 and was originally published in an arts newspaper called Transition. Julian Cannonball Adderley was only three when he began to dig jazz and his hunger for his music is yet to be satiated. The first music he remembers hearing was in church. His mother was the organist of an Episcopal church. This church background has had a profound effect on his playing. His father played ...

MULTIPLE REVIEWS April 9, 2019

Introducing Reel to Real Records

By Jakob Baekgaard

As the driving force behind the Cellar Live label, saxophonist Cory Weeds has been busy doing his share to promote contemporary jazz, so it comes as a pleasant surprise that he has found the time to start the archive label Reel to Real. Unlike reissues that are sometimes lost treasures that are found again, an archive release is a found treasure that has never been heard before. Weeds has found the perfect partner in producer Zev Feldman ...

ALBUM REVIEW January 16, 2019

Julian "Cannonball" Adderley: Swingin' In Seattle, Live At The Penthouse 1966-1967

By Mike Jurkovic

Julian Cannonball" Adderley and his merry men--brother/cornetist Nat Adderley, bassist Victor Gaskin, backbeat king drummer Roy McCurdy and bursting-at-the-seams-with-new-ideas pianist Joe Zawinul--were having themselves a high time during 1966-67, that Renaissance time of adventure between Cecil Taylor's Unit Structures (Blue Note, 1966), Miles Smiles (Columbia, 1967) and the colorful, imagination emancipations of Sgt. Peppers' Lonely Hearts Club Band (Capital, 1967) and Charles Lloyd's live Forest Sunflower (Atlantic, 1967). Into this froth drops Cannonball's earthy and jocular soul/blues/jazz and “Mercy, Mercy, ...

RADIO October 30, 2018

Jazz Renditions of Blues, Soul, Pop & Rock Hits (Part 1)

By Ludovico Granvassu

The compositions that we refer to as “jazz standards" were the pop songs of their time, before gradually developing into mainstays of the jazz repertoire. This week we focus on jazz interpretations of today's popular music, with renditions of the songs of artists ranging from Marvin Gaye to Sonic Youth, from Prince to Led Zeppelin, from Ray Charles to Paul Simon, from Donald Fagen to Bob Dylan and more. Will some of these songs become the standards of the coming ...

MY BLUE NOTE OBSESSION May 9, 2016

Cannonball Adderley: Somethin' Else – 1958

By Marc Davis

Is there anything new to say about a jazz classic that features one of the greatest two-horn tandems ever to lay down a blue note? How about this: You must own this record. Period. I suspect that everyone with even a passing interest in jazz owns Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz record of all time. Well, Somethin' Else is Kind of Blue one year earlier. Same two horns--Davis on trumpet, Cannonball Adderley on alto--supported by ...

REASSESSING August 23, 2013

Cannonball Adderley & Milt Jackson: Things Are Getting Better

By C. Michael Bailey

Cannonball Adderley & Milt JacksonThings Are Getting BetterOJC1959/2013 Alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley's 1959 Things Are Getting Better joins guitarist Wes Montgomery's So Much Guitar!, trumpeter Chet Baker's Chet Baker Plays The Best Of Lerner & Loewe (OJC/Riverside, 1959/2013) and Gerry Mulligan's Mulligan Meets Monk (OJC/Riverside, 1957/2013) in re-issue celebrating the 60th anniversary of Riverside Records. Adderley was in much demand in the late 1950s, being part of Miles ...