Review by Claude August 23, 2005 (5 of 8 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics: |
This is one of the best live documents of the Cannonball Adderley quintet with brother Nat on cornet and Bobby Timmons (p), Sam Jones (b), Luis Hayes (dr). It was made in 1959. The music is straight ahead, uncomplicated hard bop and will appeal also to occasional jazz listeners.
The recording is very "hot", (smooth) tape saturation can be heard on the loudest passages of most horn solos. The bass drum also sounds slightly distorted. The piano, recorded with one microphone as customary in the 1950's, sounds a bit thin. The horns are panned to one stereo channel. Overall, it is a very fine remastering that brings out the best of the recording but also shows it's limitations.
A very enjoyable disc, as far as music and sound are concerned.
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Review by Little Nemo July 15, 2012 (2 of 2 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics: |
The music here is not simply "straight-ahead hard bop" as suggested by Claude. This is mostly "soul jazz" - jazz with a heavy soul (and R 'n B) bent - although there are a couple of numbers played in the hard bop style as well. The band swings throughout and the solos from Cannonball show him to be on pretty top form. Nat's solos are a little less inspired, but it must have been hard to be in the great Cannonball's shadow, and he holds his own quite well. There's some nice call-and-response interplay between the brothers on 'Spontaneous Combustion' and nice set-pieces in which they play together in harmony throughout.
Sonically this live recording is very good. It sounds like it was mixed on-the-go, direct to 2-channel tape. Like 'Jazz at the Pawnshop' (also live-mixed) the earliest bars of the opening track take a minute or so to find a good balance as the engineer makes level adjustments to the sound. Before long, however, the sound really finds itself, and each performer can be heard very clearly indeed. The balance improves further after a couple of tracks as the double bass seems to tighten up nicely and really underpins the soundscape really well. This is evident on 'You Got It!' which features some really swinging bass, and there's a nice bass solo on 'Straight, no Chaser'. If I had a couple of niggles, it would be that the snare sounds a little boxy and the loudest bass drum hits push the tape saturation to the limit and beyond, as does the piano. The whole thing is a little on the hot side, but the flip side is there is little noticeable tape hiss. The delighted audience reactions can be heard throughout, but never sound imposing.
I'm not sure quite how much this recording benefits from a hi-def format such as SACD. Firstly, the recording in the first place is not exactly the highest definition, being, as I said, quite 'hot' with plenty of tape saturation. It is a late-50s live recording, after all. There's a Japanese K2-remastered CD version which sounds warm and smooth - possibly even better than the Fantasy SACD - which shows how important good quality mastering is, even more so than the actual digital resolution.
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