{"id":548,"date":"2011-07-07T04:54:58","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T09:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=548"},"modified":"2022-10-07T14:59:59","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T18:59:59","slug":"album-review-cannonball-adderley-with-bill-evans-know-what-i-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/07\/album-review-cannonball-adderley-with-bill-evans-know-what-i-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans – Know What I Mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve confessed elsewhere on this blog, by most reasonable standards I\u2019m a jazz newbie. Yes, I did buy Weather Report<\/strong>\u2019s Heavy Weather<\/em> LP when I was in high school. And it\u2019s true that in my early college days I was the recipient of some handed-down Chick Corea<\/strong> jazz improvisation LP (though at the time I hated it). I\u2019ve pretty much always been a rock guy.<\/p>\n

It way well be that the work of Cannonball Adderley<\/strong> is not the most common of entry points into modern jazz, but it was mine. Sometime in the mid 1990s I picked up a copy of the 1958 Blue Note LP Somethin\u2019 Else<\/em> for a buck at a neighborhood garage sale. It was cheap, and in good condition, so I figured, why not.<\/p>\n

As you may have guessed, I fell in love with that record. The things that Adderley and his band (including, among others, Art Blakey<\/strong>, Miles Davis<\/strong> and Adderley\u2019s brother Nat<\/strong>) did with those songs simply amazed me. The reinvention of standards like \u201cAutumn Leaves\u201d was revelatory, and there was so much to absorb that I could listen again and again, finding new joys in each successive listen. Nearly twenty years after that (for me) momentous chance purchase, I still count that LP as one of my favorites.<\/p>\n

My discovery of jazz pianist Bill Evans<\/strong> is a far more recent event. In late 2010 I received a review copy of the Bill Evans Trio<\/strong> album Waltz for Debby<\/em><\/a>, and it had a similar effect upon me. So it was with some great joy that I found my mailbox recently contained a Concord expanded reissue on CD of the 1961 album Know What I Mean?<\/em> credited to Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s everything I could have expected, and more. The disc opens up with another reading of Evans\u2019 \u201cWaltz for Debby\u201d (he recorded several versions: all unique, all worthwhile). Even though I play piano myself, I would never claim to understand more than a fraction of what Evans does with the instrument.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a book currently on my nightstand. You see, there\u2019s this local bookstore \u2013 I won\u2019t say where, lest you shop there and ruin things for me \u2013 and in their music section they never fail to turn up some interesting used titles at bargain prices. It was there that I scored a softcover edition of How My Heart Sings<\/em>, Peter Pettinger<\/strong>\u2019s excellent (if dense) biography of Evans. Pettinger explains — to the extent anyone can \u2013 how Evans colored his tone through the way he sat at the piano, the amount of tension in his body (especially his forearms). Like the music itself, I don\u2019t quite \u201cget\u201d a lot of it, but the feeling — the gist \u2013 comes through loud and clear.<\/p>\n

And so it is with the songs on Know What I Mean?<\/em> None of the players is content to act as backing musician, and as such the album is an exemplar of what (I believe) Evans termed \u201csimultaneous improvisation.\u201d The amazing thing is that it all works.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s all delivered in crystal-clear stereo sound, no small feat for 1961. Riverside honcho Orrin Keepnews<\/strong> was a master at capturing the live tonalities of acoustic instruments in the studio, and Know What I Mean?<\/em> has that trademark you-are-there vibe throughout.<\/p>\n

Know What I Mean?<\/em> is certainly Cannonball\u2019s show — he gets the share of solos one would expect on an LP bearing his name \u2013 but there\u2019s plenty going on \u2013 much of it quite subtle \u2013 elsewhere within the songs. The instinctive give-and-take of the players is breathtaking. Evans\u2019 light touch on \u201cGoodbye\u201d is contrasted by Adderley\u2019s alto sax; the latter is considerably louder in the mix, and like everything else on this album, we can safely assume that is no accident. When Adderley starts a solo, the listener is goosed out of any piano-induced reverie he or she might be enjoying.<\/p>\n

As is standard on Concord Original Jazz Classics Remasters, both the original and contemporary liner notes are part of the package. The 1961 liners make a reference that \u2013 a half century later \u2013 is unintentionally amusing. The swinging bop of \u201cWho Cares\u201d is characterized by Joe Goldberg<\/strong> as \u201cthe most overt rocker of the set.\u201d As The Princess Bride<\/em>\u2019s Inigo Montoya once said, \u201cYou keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.\u201d No matter; it\u2019s a great track.<\/p>\n

Three bonus tracks are included; all are alternate takes of song that ended up on the official LP, but a later take of the title track goes on a full two minutes longer than the official version. Take 8 of \u201cToy\u201d is previously unreleased.<\/p>\n

The word effortless<\/em> comes to mind while listening to Know What I Mean?<\/em> The performances seem so natural, full of nuance but never forced, never studied. Part of that quality is certainly down to the players\u2019 familiarity with one another: Adderley and Evans played together with Miles. The choice of material goes a long way toward achieving that effect, as well. In addition to Evans\u2019 signature tune, songs by Gordon Jenkins<\/strong> and the Gershwins<\/strong> \u2013 plus the Sinatra<\/strong>-popularized \u201cNancy (With the Laughing Face)\u201d ensure that time and effort can be spent on improvisation, rather than rote playing.<\/p>\n

And of course when it comes to these players, that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s to be expected. Know what I mean?<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I\u2019ve confessed elsewhere on this blog, by most reasonable standards I\u2019m a jazz newbie. Yes, I did buy Weather Report\u2019s Heavy Weather LP when I was in high school. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[312,459,574],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-bill-evans","tag-cannonball-adderely","tag-concord-music-group","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23886,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions\/23886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}