One jazzman who never forgot the blues . . .
Cannonball Adderley Quintet, "Sack o'Woe"
! No longer availableCannonball Adderley Quintet, "Them Dirty Blues"
! No longer availableCannonball Adderley Quintet, "Barefoot Sunday Blues"
! No longer availableCannonball Adderley Quintet, "One for Daddy-O"
! No longer availableCannonball Adderley was an anomaly among jazzmen of his generation---at a time when jazzmen were becoming Serious Artistes who could barely bring themselves to acknowledge, never mind engage their audiences, Adderley (who looked like a big, affable cab driver as it was thanks to his culinary appetite, which brought him his bulk and, as it happened, his nickname) thought nothing of talking to his patrons between songs as though they were friends, even trying to explain what he and his group were about to do with their next numbers. It was a habit he had to the day he died. In 1967 he had an unlikely crossover hit on the rock and soul charts with this . . .
Cannonball Adderley Quintet, "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy"
! No longer available. . . which was as close to the blues as its composer (Joe Zawinul, then a member of the Adderley group) ever got, and the big hit couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.