Album Reviews

Always the teacher, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley commences this live set from 1959 with a backgrounder on the difference between church music and soul church music, before launching into Bobby Timmons’s “This Hear,” with the composer on piano, Adderley on alto sax, brother Nat on cornet and the rhythm section of Louis Hayes on drums and Sam Jones on bass setting up a crowd-pleasing soulful groove.

Cannonball was always about pleasing the audience with body language inducing music, while never pandering. Thus he had the respect of fellow musicians and the love of the crowd. This was the group's recorded debut, and the first assembled by Adderley.

What a time that was! In his liner notes Ralph J. Gleason recounts an evening during Cannonball’s four week stint at the club when the Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich attended. It was his first exposure to authentic American jazz.

Later groupings would feature Yusef Lateef, Joe Zawinul and others, but drummer Louis Hayes remained a fixture in Adderley’s groups, and his driving sound, punctuated often by a snapping snare is heard to great effect on this live recording that by the standards of 1959 location sound is pretty good. Hayes, Jones and Nat Adderley inhabit stage left (right channel), while Cannonball and Timmons are off to the other side.

This is yet another set probably recorded this way for later “fold down” to mono, but there’s a nice sense of “live venue” to the picture, with the audience spread across the stage, adding a natural fill to the isolation. There’s some overload on the piano, typical of many recordings from back then, but it shouldn’t get in the way of your enjoyment, though if occasional distortion makes you crazy, stay away.

This is “tap your toes” jazz, the kind where everyone’s having a good time, as Nat and Cannonball trade call and response licks for fun and musical profit, with everyone joining in to take the tunes home. There’s a great Hayes drum solo on side 4’s “Bohemia After Dark” by Oscar Pettiford.

Back in 1964, when Riverside folded, the entire catalog was available at the Cornell Campus Store for $1.98 apiece. I bought as many as I could afford, including some Monk and Cannonball Adderley albums and I still have them.

These master tapes, now owned by Fantasy (now part of the Concord Record Group) are in superb condition, mostly because jazz titles never sold in large numbers and Scotch 111 tape was almost indestructible and held the signal extremely well.

Anyone thinking original Riversides were some kind of sonic holy grail, is pulling your stylus: these 45rpm reissues beat originals in most of the ways that count, in my opinion: they are more dynamic, by far, are pressed on better vinyl and offer greater transparency. No wonder certain titles from the first series are already collector’s items.

This isn’t what I’d call a “classic” jazz album or a “must have,” nor is it a brilliant recording (though it’s not a poor one), but it’s a most entertaining one, featuring some great playing from the brothers Adderley and from the rest of the band. The same could be said for Live at the Lighthouse (RLP 9344) or Nippon Soul (RS9477), Live in New York (RLP404).

I regret not having bought every Riverside title available to me at $1.98 back in 1964, just as thousands of jazz fans will regret missing out on these limited edition double 45rpm LPs from Analog Productions, so if you’re even thinking about buying this one, get it while you can! While neither the recording nor the music are at the pinnacle, you’ll enjoy the set while it’s playing, and want to revisit it when it’s over. That to me, is what makes a record worth owning.