During
Cannonball Adderley's tenure with Capitol Records, his
Quintet cut 18 albums. Of those, at least ten were live. Whether captured in clubs, concert halls, or studios with invited audiences, the feel was spontaneous. Playing to a crowd brought out the best they had to offer without overdubs or other sweetening.
Music, You All is a testament to that -- even if it is a bit of an anomaly. These performances were recorded at L.A.'s folk venue The Troubadour over seven nights in August 1971. In 1972, Capitol released the double-album
The Black Messiah as their first fruit. After the saxophonist's death in 1975, producer
David Axelrod -- who directed the engineers during recording -- went into the vaults and listened to the complete tapes from those shows. He compiled this collection, structured it as a top-to-bottom single gig, and the label released it to mark the one-year anniversary of
Adderley's passing. It shouldn't be a surprise that in cherry-picking performances,
Axelrod assembled one of the group's finest outings. The Quintet --
Cannonball and
Nat Adderley (saxophones and cornet, respectively), bassist
Walter Booker, electric pianist
George Duke, and drummer
Roy McCurdy -- was appended by saxophonist
Ernie Watts, guitarist
Mike Deasy, and percussionist
Airto Moreira. Just under 50 minutes long, this album not only doesn't take a back seat to
The Black Messiah, it is arguably stronger than its predecessor. "The Brakes," a hard bop number, opens. The head is blues-based, but
Duke stacks modal chords in the backdrop.
McCurdy's swing, whether syncopating or adding Latin tinges, gives
Cannonball a fine foundation to solo from (he even quotes the
Beatles' "Daytripper") and
Nat follows superbly.
Duke's classic, spacy, spiritual soul tune "Capricorn" is one of the album's best moments; his soloing and painterly backdrops bridge so many traditions it's tough to count them all. The hard soul-jazz vibe in "Walk Tall" (by
Zawinul) gets greasy treatment thanks to
Deasy's distorted wah-wah guitar, three vamping horns,
Booker's driving, funky bassline, and
Duke's middle-register percussive solo. "Oh, Babe" is a choogling jazz blues with
Nat offering a silky smooth vocal as everybody else solos grittily. After a two-minute
Cannonball rap -- erudite, witty, and hip, naturally -- the title track enters as a gentle but abstract improvisation between
Airto,
Nat, and
Booker, then picks up steam as the band enters. First it shapeshifts into an incantatory modal electric jazz rock tune, then into a spiritual soul-jazz jam that caves under a screaming
Deasy rock solo before concluding with straight-ahead, hard bop featuring a walking bassline and fingerpopping solos from both
Adderleys.
Axelrod delivers a great tribute to his friend on
Music, You All. It reveals exactly who this band was during this juncture. All their rawness, interactive creativity, humor, and sophistication are captured at peak power. ~ Thom Jurek