Cannonball Adderley

condition (records/cover): NM / NM

Gatefold sleeve. Obi included.

Double-LP Japanese Capitol retrospective of the Cannonball Adderley years that gave the world "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" and a run of live albums that turned nightclubs into congregations coast to coast. Across two discs, the full range shows: hard bop credentials kept sharp, soul jazz hits that actually charted, Joe Zawinul's electric piano colors creeping in and pointing toward the fusion future, and always that enormous, generous alto at the center, playing sophisticated music that never once condescended to the people dancing to it. Few careers in jazz balanced popularity and substance so gracefully, and fewer still made the balance look like pure pleasure rather than compromise - the Adderley brothers' particular genius, sustained for a decade.

Japanese 2LP edition, gatefold treatment, assembled by and for the market that archived this catalog most lovingly. An education and a party in one package, sequenced so you barely notice which is which. Exactly as Cannonball intended.