Cannonball Correction

Thanks to Bill Kirchner, who calls me to account for an error in the previous item, Boxes, about Cannonball Adderley’s tenure with Miles Davis.

Cannonball was a member of the Miles Davis sextet from the gitgo–December 1957. Cannonball had been working for Miles since the fall of 1957, and Miles then rehired Philly Joe Jones, Coltrane, and Red Garland. As you know, Bill Evans replaced Garland in the spring of 1958, followed shortly thereafter by Jimmy Cobb replacing Jones.
It may be that on the Café Bohemia pieces you mentioned, Cannonball was unavailable that
evening. On the TV show that Miles did for Robert Herridge in 1959, Cannonball was not
present because of migraines that he suffered periodically. (You’ll note that he nonetheless
is listed in the show’s credits.)

To see and hear Davis, John Coltrane, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb give a first-rate performance of “So What” from the Herridge broadcast, go here. The entire half-hour program, or all of it that survives, is available on DVD.
Adderley and Evans continued the mutual admiration society they formed on Davis’s Kind of Blue sextet. In 1961, after they had moved on to be leaders of their own groups, they recorded Know What I Mean? with bassist Percy Heath and drummer Connie Kay of the Modern Jazz Quartet. A highlight in the discographies of both men, the CD has one of the most charming versions of Evans’s “Waltz for Debby” and additional takes of the title tune and Gershwin’s “Who Cares?” Unlike many alternate takes, these bonus tracks are as good as the originally released cuts.