Cannonball Adderley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Julian Adderley)
Jump to: navigation, search
Cannonball Adderley
Birth name Julian Edwin Adderley
Born September 15, 1928(1928-09-15)
Tampa, Florida
Origin Flag of the United States
Died August 8, 1975 (aged 46)
Gary, Indiana
Genre(s) Jazz, Soul jazz
Occupation(s) Teacher, musician
Instrument(s) Alto saxophone soprano saxophone
Years active 19551975
Label(s) Blue Note Records
Associated
acts
Nat Adderley
Miles Davis
George Duke
Yusef Lateef
Sam Jones
Joe Zawinul
Louis Hayes
Bobby Timmons

Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928August 8, 1975), was a jazz alto saxophonist of the small combo era of the 1950s and 1960s. Originally from Tampa, Florida, he moved to New York in the mid 1950's.

The nickname "Cannonball" was a childhood nickname for the portly saxophonist, a corruption of "cannibal". An articulate speaker with an easy manner, Cannonball educated, amused, and informed his audiences in clubs and on television about the art and moods of jazz (he was a music teacher before beginning his jazz career).

Contents

His educational career was long established prior to teaching applied instrumental music classes at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Cannonball was a local legend in Florida until he moved to New York City in 1955.

He joined the Miles Davis sextet in 1957, around the time that John Coltrane left the group to join Thelonious Monk's band. (Coltrane would return to Davis's group in 1958). Adderley played on the seminal Davis records Milestones and Kind of Blue. Davis had this to say of Adderley's style: "He had a certain spirit. You couldn't put your finger on it, but it was there in his playing every night." This period also overlapped with pianist Bill Evans's time with the sextet, an association that led to recording Portrait of Cannonball and Know What I Mean?.

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet featured Cannonball on alto sax and his brother Nat Adderley on cornet. Adderley's first quintet was not very successful. However, after leaving Davis' group, he reformed another, again with his brother, which enjoyed more success.

The new quintet (which later became the Cannonball Adderley Sextet), and Cannonball's other combos and groups, included such noted musicians as:

The sextet was noteworthy towards the end of the 1960s for achieving crossover success with pop audiences, but doing it without making artistic concessions.

By the end of 1960s, Adderley's playing began to reflect the influence of the electric jazz avant-garde, and Miles Davis' experiments on the radical album Bitches Brew. On his albums from this period, such as The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free (1970), he began doubling on soprano saxophone, showing the influence of John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter.

Adderley died of a stroke in 1975. He was buried in the Southside Cemetery, Tallahassee, Florida. Joe Zawinul's composition "Cannon Ball" (recorded on Weather Report's album Black Market) is a tribute to his former leader.

Songs made famous by Adderley and his bands include 'This Here' (written by Bobby Timmons), 'The Jive Samba', 'Work Song' (written by Nat Adderley), 'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy' (written by Joe Zawinul) and 'Walk Tall' (written by Zawinul, Marrow and Rein). A cover version of Roebuck Staples' 'Why (Am I Treated So Bad)?' also entered the charts.

Adderley was a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America Incorporated (Xi Omega, Frostburg State University, '70), the largest and oldest secret society in music and Alpha Phi Alpha, the oldest existing intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans (made Beta Nu chapter, Florida A&M University).[1]

Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones named both of his sons Julian, allegedly in honor of Adderley.

As a leader
with Miles Davis
as a producer

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.