condition (record/cover): NM / NM

Insert and obi included.

1955: a young Cannonball Adderley, newly arrived from Florida and already being hailed as the new Bird, wrapped in string arrangements for EmArcy - the classic mid-fifties showcase treatment, and the alto sails over it with that huge, joyous, blues-soaked sound that made resistance pointless from his first week in New York. Strings sessions divide collectors, often fairly; this one earns its place because Cannonball simply refuses to coast, phrasing with as much invention over the cushion as he would over a hard-driving rhythm section, treating the format as a challenge rather than a bath. The ballad readings in particular show how complete the voice already was: the warmth, the wit, the effortless authority in every register. A lovely document of the first flush of one of the most purely pleasurable careers in jazz, before the quintet years and the soul-jazz reign.

Japanese pressing, warm and quiet, exactly right for the material and the mood it builds.