In New York

They Say...

Review by Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide

In this volume from Concord's Keepnews Collection, the only real addition to this excellent Cannonball Adderley Sextet live date from the Village Vanguard is a new set of reminiscences from producer Orrin Keepnews himself. As always, Keepnews is candid, sometimes self-depreciating but not reluctant to pat himself on the back, uniquely insightful, and compulsively readable. Anytime you have as good a writer as he is providing first-hand source material, give him all the space he wants. This was the recording debut of the Adderley Sextet, with Cannonball waxing eloquently and swingingly on alto, brother Nat charging ahead on cornet, and the versatile Yusef Lateef (who had joined the band only three weeks earlier) adding a bit of an edge on tenor, flute, and unusually for a jazz wind player, oboe on the odd, dirge-like "Syn-Anthesia." There is plenty of talk from Cannonball as well, and once again, we miss his genial, witty authority as a communicator. With Joe Zawinul's death in September 2007 occurring just as Keepnews was wrapping up his liner notes, he is careful to mention that this was the first recorded appearance of the Vienna-born pianist -- a little over three years since his arrival in America -- in Cannonball's band. This group would be Zawinul's springboard to prominence in the jazz world -- and already his compulsively funky mastery of bop and the blues has fused tightly with the Sam Jones/Louis Hayes rhythm section. Included is one of the earliest recordings of a Zawinul composition, "Scotch and Water," a happy, swinging blues. There are no outtakes or alternate takes, no new musical material of any kind -- just a 24-bit remastering, up from 20-bits in the last reissue and not so big an improvement that Adderley fans should feel compelled to dump any earlier CD versions that they might own.