Cannonball Adderley
b. Julian Edwin Adderley, 15 September 1928, Tampa, Florida, USA, d. 8 August 1975. Cannonball Adderley was one of the great saxophonists of his generation. His fiery, blues-soaked interpretations of Charlie Parker's alto legacy brought jazz to many people hitherto untouched by it. In the '60s he launched a new genre whose popularity has survived undiminished into the '90s: soul jazz. Cannonball is derived from 'Cannibal', a nickname earned at high school on account of his prodigious appetite. He studied brass and reed instruments there between 1944 and 1948. Until 1956 he was band director at Dillerd High School, Lauderdale, Florida, as well as leader of his own jazz quartet. While serving in the forces he became director of the 36th Army Band, an ensemble that included his younger brother Nat Adderley on trumpet. Persuaded to go to New York by legendary alto saxophonist and R&B singer Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson, Cannonball created a sensation at the Cafe Bohemia, playing alongside bassist Oscar Pettiford. In 1958 he signed to Riverside Records and over the next six years released a series of albums, many of them recorded live, that laid the foundations of the soul-jazz genre. As well as his brother Nat, Adderley's first group featured a superb rhythm section in Sam Jones and Louis Hayes, supplemented by pianist Bobby Timmons, who also wrote the group's first hit, This Here. From 1957-59 Adderley was part of the classic Miles Davis Quintet, an astonishing group of individuals which also included John Coltrane (tenor), Bill Evans or Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). As well as playing on the celebrated KIND OF BLUE, Cannonball recorded his own album SOMETHIN' ELSE for Blue Note Records—Davis appeared as a sideman, a rare honour. 
After leaving Davis, Cannonball re-formed his own outfit, with his brother Nat still on cornet and in 1961 Yusef Lateef joined on tenor saxophone and stayed for two productive years. This band nurtured the talents of electric pianists Joe Zawinul and then George Duke. It was Zawinul's Mercy, Mercy, Mercy—recorded live at the Club Delisa in Chicago—that provided Adderley with his next major hit: it reached number 11 in the US charts, in February 1967. The title indicates the kind of gospel-orientated, black consciousness groove the group was into. Their last hit was Country Preacher, again a Zawinul composition, that peaked in early 1970 (29 in the R&B charts). Straight jazz was never to have this mass appeal again. When asked about his inspirations, Cannonball cited the swing alto saxophonist Benny Carter and of course Charlie Parker—but his understanding of blues distortion also enabled him to apply the avant garde lessons of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. His alto saxophone had a special immediacy, a welcome reminder of the blues at the heart of bebop, an element that jazz rock—the bastard offspring of soul jazz—too often suppressed.