Spending Some Time With Cannonball Adderley Records 

Last week at our weekly jazz gig at Black Lotus Brewery, we featured the music of the Adderley Bros.  So I was shedding Cannonball solos all week, something I did a whole lot of when I was much younger.  Cannonball was one of the earliest and most significant influences on my approach to jazz.  But, it's been a while since I was digging deep into his bag and revisiting him was so insightful and productive.  I picked up a few gems through transcribing his solo on "Jeanine" off the Paris 1960 record.



It is well documented, but his articulation is so inventive!  He does the odd groupings of slurred to tongued, like a 3 + 2 + 2, etc. which when combined with the shape of his lines is so fresh and popping.  He also will ease up on the syncopation by tonging every eighth note for a measure...works real well for a release of rhythmic tension.  

Besides his unique articulation schemes, I was really getting into his "inside" vocabulary.  A couple things in particular I heard him doing a bunch; one was his be-bop navigation through dominant II7 - V7 turnarounds; second was hip little minor licks taken up a minor third.  I know both of these ideas are quite common, but the way Cannonball plays them pops out to my ear.  How often does that happen to us as students and as teachers of music?  We can hear the same message over and over again, but for some reason it doesn't resonate until one person come along and says the same thing a little differently and KAZAAM the lightbulb comes on!

I try to record some parts of my practicing each day, here is a snippet of me implementing some of Cannonball's ideas on the tune "It Could Happen To You."
 

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