"INSIDE STRAIGHT"

Recorded live at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California, on June ,1973

Having been a listener to Cannonball Adderley albums for quite a few years by now, and having been his friend be fore, during and after being his record producer-when I say this is a hell of a good Cannonball Adderley Quintet album, I expect that to mean something to you.
The fact that I happen to work for the company that is issuing this record in no way influences me. As a matter of fact, quite the contrary. Although I'm the head of the jazz-producing department around here, I had nothing at all to do with the creating of this album. That actually should make me prejudiced against it, since my favorite records often turn out to be ones I have produced, and that is certainly true of my favorite Cannonball albums.

So, to put things into proper perspective: despite the fact that it is not my work, I still find this a really superior recording by one of the happiest, hippest, most burning and most swinging groups in the world today, made on a night when everybody's vibes were good and the right juices were flowing.

All sorts of right juices, as a matter of fact, including those that helped the audience feel more a part of the scene. You see, Adderley and his long-time coproducer, Dave Axelrod, have come up with a strong variation on the "live" record date. (That, incidentally, is a phrase that has always bothered me, even though I know it refers to "live audience" - obviously, the musicians on all record dates are presumed to be alive at the time, right?) Back in the early days of my association with Cannon, we taped a couple of nights' work by his newly formed quintet at the late lamented Jazz Workshop In San Francisco. The result (the celebrated Riverside album that featured Bobby Timmons' "This Here", among other things) was an honest-to- God smash hit, and did a lot to make widespread fads out of both the playing of funky "soul jazz" and the recording of groups on the job.

But in these days of ultra-sophisticated multi-track recording techniques, the acoustics and the working room in the average club leave a lot to be desired. However, the particular bright spark of Adderley performance has always seemed to glow at its best when an actual audience is breathing (and hollering) around it. So, why not bring the club to the studio? Cannon surely didn't invent this concept, but he and Axelrod have used it to great advantage before, and surely it came to a pinnacle of success on this particular balmy June eve ning in Berkeley. Picture the scene.

An overflow crowd of friends, well- wishers, Fantasy staff, a sprinkling of press and d.j. representatives ("I don't want a press party," said Mr. Adderley, adding - surely without intending any offense-"I just want a lot of nice friendly people"), and the expected quota of folks who just heard about the session. Fantasy's very large Studio A converted (by the addition of a band-stand, a public address system, tables and chairs, and a stocked bar with bar tender) into one of the cleanest night clubs you ever saw. I've previously noted that I had nothing to do with the record, but that isn't entirely accurate. Somebody had to supervise such vital creative functions as removing the dangerously fancy candles from the tables, substituting some standing room for some of the furniture, and keeping some of the too many people waiting patiently outside for a while. (Somebody did, and I want it understood that I am not available to handle this job for any other occasion.)

In any event, food (some magic soul food and even more magical brownies, dished up by Spencer Moore, the urbane chef provided by Cannonball), drink, fur nishings and people added up to that word they always use to describe good French restaurants - ambience. It was ambient as all hell in there, and you can hear it, and all of us, on the record.

This is an album that does not break any wondrous new musical ground- and that is one of the important things about it. It is a really fine, cooking album, and it is thoroughly contemporary, if that word means what I've always thought it does: of our time, of today. That's not just because there's electric piano here (formidably played by Hal Galper, most recent addition to the band, who also writes like a dream), but because everyone on the album is of today and is musically saying things that com municate with today's audience.

Yet, as I said, it is not a ground- breaker. It is simply the current version of what Julian Adderley has always had- a damn good, entirely contemporary band. He had it when he went into the Jazz Workshop; he had it in June, 1973; and he'll undoubtedly have it as long as he chooses to loom up on a bandstand, with his comparatively little brother wailing alongside, and a skintight rhythm section behind them. In a society that tries awfully hard to burn its artists out, or bury them, or change them completely, every couple of years, that's saying a great deal. Cannonball has obviously learned how to beat that rap. He changes somewhat-but that is primarily because he is always hearing new things (with his ears and his head and his soul), and is constantly engaged in absorbing and adapting and sometimes adopting them. He also remains, under the surface and at least in part up on the surface, just what he has always been. And he makes his listeners cheerfully accept that mixture.

And it shows very good sense on their part to do so.

Orrin Keepnews

Produced by Cannonball Adderley and
Axelrod for Junat Productions. supervision-Orrin Keepnews and remix engineer-Jim Stern

cover photos-Tony Lane & Stephen Shames