Cannonball Adderley Quintet (CD, Jazzhouse)

Legendary live document: Cannonball Adderley Quintet live in Stuttgart. When Nat and his older brother Julian Cannonball Adderley tried to start a quintet together in the mid-1950s, hardly anyone was interested in the newcomers from Florida. In retrospect, that was a good thing. Because in this way the trumpeter Nat ended up in bands of Jay Jay Johnson or George Shearing and refined his art of blues-bopping-elegant ensemble playing there. The alto saxophonist Cannonball was Miles Davis’s counterpart to tenor John Coltrane for a good four years. When the brothers got together again in 1959, both had matured and were ready to lead one of the most successful jazz bands of the 1960s. In contrast to experimental colleagues, who tested the limits of music but lost more and more of their listeners, the Cannonball Adderley Quintet managed a large audience with hits like This Here, Work Song, Jive Samba and above all Mercy, Mercy, Mercy to reach. No wonder, then, that the Cannonball Adderley Quintet in the Stuttgart Liederhalle received applause! Completed by the bassist Victor Gaskin and the drummer Roy McCurdy, they had exactly the right repertoire in their luggage.