Merci, Merci, Merci: Cannonball 90

We're here this evening for the 90th birthday of a long-gone superstar of music, who'll never really disappear from our world.

He first came to prominence as a part of what many still consider the greatest small group in the history of Jazz: the Miles Davis band of the late 1950s.

When he left that group and ventured forth on his own, he helped usher in a whole new bag of sounds and helped take Jazz back to the dancefloor where it began.

I have posted on him before, but when these big milestone anniversaries come around I tend to mark them, like a dog marking its path so it can find its way home.

He is responsible for elevating to fame the pianist of his 1960s group, who went on to even more dazzling heights as part of another DNA-altering ensemble as the Sixties became the Seventies.

His group also contained his brother, himself one of the luminaries on his instrument and also tremendously beloved in his own right. Someday I'm gonna have to blog him too.

He died way too young in 1975, but not before Julian "Cannonball" Adderley blazed a vapor trail across the Jazz idiom, leaving it permanently altered in his gargantuan wake.

To celebrate the occasion of his 90th birthday, we have a sweet two-hour Austrian radio concert, broadcast over ORF in Vienna and supplied here in its entirety. Watch out for the aforementioned keys deity Josef Zawinul, whose indelible compositions and galaxy-class playing are majorly featured.

Cannonball Adderley Quintet
Stephaniensaal
Graz, Austria
3.15.1969

01 Big P
02 Cannon talks
03 Sweet Emma
04 Cannon talks
05 74 Miles Away
06 Cannon talks
07 piano solo
08 Cannon talks
09 Walk Tall
10 Cannon talks
11 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
12 The Scene
13 Experience In E
14 Cannon talks
15 Bittersweet/Yours Is My Heart Alone
16 Cannon talks
17 Bohemia After Dark
18 Cannon talks
19 Early Chanson
20 Oh Babe
21 The Scene
22 The Work Song

Total time: 1:53:11
disc break goes after Track 12

Julian "Cannonball" Adderley - alto saxophone & percussion
Nat Adderley - cornet & vocals
Josef Zawinul - piano
Victor Gaskin - bass
Roy McCurdy - drums

sounds like a master mono FM reel captured from ORF Radio in Vienna;
tape damage at the end of Track 21 somewhat repaired by EN, September 2018
561 MB FLAC/September 2018 archive link

This had some less-than-minimal tape damage in the last 40 seconds of the penultimate tune, but I worked on it to smooth it out as best I could.

No matter, as despite its flaws this is a stellar document of what put Cannon's 1960s quintet at the forefront of the music of their time.

I'll be back sometime soon, but today is a day to remember and pay homage to one of the pillars of American music, born this day in 1928 and never faded from the firmament.--J.

9.15.1928 - 8.8.1975