"WHY AM I TREATED SO BAD"

The mood was one of jubilant celebration.

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet's single, "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!" had already exceeded 600,000 sales, and was on its way to an inevitable million. The album of the same title had racked up a phenomenal first-day sale. The music press was calling "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" the "Big" jazz hit of the year.

Now they were gathered together to record a follow-up album, and it was obviously headed for similar surpassing distinction. Caught up in the fine, rare, true exhilaration of a singular success, Cannonball and his Quintet opened up for their "live" audience in Hollywood a bagful of all their best new goodies:

"Why Am I Treated So Bad" a subtly-rocking, bluesy, compelling composition in the great "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" groove... "Mini Mama" a new and perfect vehicle for Giant-sized Papa performing by Cannonball, Nat Adderley, and Joe Zawinul at their extroverted best...

"I'm On My Way" outstanding musically, and also a standout item for one other very special reason. As Cannonball explained it to the crowd, "This is a composition by Nat Adderley. Not my brother Nat Adderley - his son, Nat Adderley the piano player. Little Nat is a fine musician and he's eleven years old. You won't believe it when you hear it. He wrote this composition and the arrangement for our band"

Two great Joe Zawinul compositions:

"One For Newk" which spotlights the Austrian pianist himself, unravelling a series of knotty keyboard figurations. And "Yvette" a haunting poem for Cannonball and Nat, lushly flavored with Ellingtonian colorations. Plus Nat and Joe's collaborative effort "The Scene" and Nat's own new composition "The Other Side," which Cannonball describes as "designed to appease the sentiments of the extraordinary hippy." In it, Cannonball's alto slices richly through the ozone, and sets down a sax chorus so earthy it may well call down the wrath of both the anti -pornography agencies and the smog-control people.

For all those new disciples who've been pleading for more "Mercy!" well, mercy, mercy, mercy, here it is. It's the same great Quintet: Cannonball and Nat Adderley on the horns, Josef Zawinul on piano and electric piano, Vic Gaskin on bass, and Roy Mc Curdy on percussion. As Chicago deejay E. Rodney Jones wrote of them in his notes for their last album, "That Quintet is five giants, all climbing up the beanstalk at once !" Here they are again, in shouting form at the peak of their sensational new success. They lay down enough great jazz to satisfy the most insatiable appetite.

Produced by DAVID AXELROD