Customer Reviews

Somethin Else (Hybr)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you know and love Miles Davis from the late 1950s `Kind of Blue' period but haven't heard anything recorded under Julian `Cannonball' Adderley's own name, you're likely to love and appreciate `Somethin Else.' It's the perfect Blue Note companion to KoB and in the same groove, with superlative playing throughout from Adderley on alto sax and Miles on trumpet together with Hank Jones on piano, and a rhythm section made up of Art Blakey on drums and Sam Jones on bass.

It's difficult to pick out highlights on a collection so uniformly excellent, but the 11-minute opener `Autumn Leaves' is a true jazz classic which you'll think you've always known, so recognisably familiar is the melody. The title track, showcasing the horn interplay between Miles and Cannonball chasing each other all over the scales in an exuberant and up-tempo duet sounds like a cut which escaped from the KoB sessions, and `One for Daddy-O' with its slower tempo and stand-out uncomplicated melody also shines. In the sparse, clean and bluesy `Dancing in the Dark' we hear Cannonball at his soulful best, his horn soaring with a long, slow-tempo solo over a perfectly understated rhythm.

The music here is instantly accessible, with nothing unnecessarily complex or jarring. You can listen to the album again and again, no matter what you're doing, though one or two of the numbers are perhaps a little up-tempo for dinner-party background ambience. Overall `Somethin Else' is an indispensable jazz classic which stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the very best of Miles, Trane or Charlie Parker.

The nickname `Cannonball' BTW came from a corruption of `Cannibal' due to Adderley's huge appetite for food and habit of eating absolutely everything available at every opportunity, the result manifest in his generously proportioned, rotund and substantial physique. But boy, can he play that horn.

Excellent!
One of the best jazz music of this era!
Amazing sound!

Good recording to work with in the first place so the SACD can be great, but this isn't as lively and fun as Cannonball's "Things are Getting Better. If you don't get happy feet listening to that you're in trouble. Still, "Somethin' Else" is borderline "must have".