Search - Cannonball Adderley :: Best of the Capitol Years

Two of Cannonball?s best bands -

Will Flannery | Berkeley, CA | 12/31/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Cannonball's bands are known for their soulfulness and their joyous spirit and exuberance, characteristics which have to be extensions of the man himself, and their great tunes, like "Mercy, Mercy", "Sack o' Woe", etc. Also, Cannonball's alto sound is archetypal, one of the best, a treat in itself, and his technique amazing. Plus, the band had a secret ingredient, Nat's always melodic and soulful cornet playing. Yet, there was a rap on the band - `not heavy (musically) enough'. Cannonball's solution was to augment his quintet with at one time Yusef Lateef, and another Charles Lloyd, two of the heaviest (musically) tenor players on the planet. The results were two of the best jazz bands of all time. Both bands are represented on this disc.This is for sure the version to have of `Jive Samba', a live recording that features a great flute solo by Yusef. For the most part I think of jazz flute as twitering above the fray and not carrying too much weight, but in this solo Lateef plays his usual very strong lines, and then he hums along with the flute to establish maximum depth and funkiness, and then he throws in some whipping, cascading, fluttering runs that can only be liked to a lion's roar, that may cause you to jump from your seat.As far as I know Lloyd only recorded one CD with the band, and it hasn't been re-released. On this CD Lloyd is on `Fiddler on the Roof', an up tempo bopper that culminates with a ferocious solo by Lloyd - it doesn't get any better."

Guess I'll have to be the grinch on this one...

William E. Adams | Midland, Texas USA | 09/26/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I like Cannonball, but this disc is less interesting than the other three releases I have by him. As the other reviewers say, even the ones who like this CD more than I do, the pianist Joe Zawinul gets a lot of the spotlight on these nine tunes...more than he should. For my taste, this album is too much "live" and crowd noise and less than scintillating spoken song intros. A bit more of the funk and fusion feeling to it than I enjoy. Ahead of this, I'd recommend "Know What I Mean? Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans" on Riverside; "Somethin' Else: Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, Hank Jones, Sam Jones and Art Blakey" on Blue Note, and "Timeless Cannonball Adderley" on the Savoy label. Those three are uniformly fine, and varied enough to make a great Adderley collection all by themselves. "The Capitol Years" is not horrible, but compared to his earlier stuff, it just fails to enchant, and to entice repeated play."

Misleading title, but good music nonetheless

Todd Ebert | Long Beach California | 04/15/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The title of this recording seems very misleading. Although one will find most of Cannonball's most popular work (songs) here, the title should have read something like "Live Cannonball", since the entire recording is that of live performances with his band that included Joe Zawinul and his brother Nat Adderly. Truthfully, Cannonball did very little of original significance with Capitol Records. With that said however, I still enjoy this recording very much. The two featured bands really cook, Cannonball is at his soulful, playing best, and the digital sound production of Michael Cuscuna is typical par excellence. So despite the misleading title, I consider this a strong recording and a good introduction to Adderley's music."