Julian “Cannonball Adderley” ranks amongst the finest alto saxophonists in the history of jazz. In pianistic terms the same is true for Bill Evans. Putting them in the studio together meant brilliance was bound to happen. And that’s exactly what’s heard on Know What I Mean?, an album first released in 1962 by the Riverside label that’s getting a fresh 180 gram pressing on March 1 by Craft Recordings as part of the label’s Original Jazz Classics reissue series. Add bassist Percy Heath and drummer Connie Key to the lineup and the result is an essential entry in the discographies of all the participants.
Those clued into the achievements that shaped jazz music’s boom years likely know the most celebrated album to feature both Adderley and Evans isn’t this one, but rather Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. Recorded in 1959 and released by Columbia later that year, Kind of Blue remains a highly lauded and well-liked album, a groundbreaking recording that has endured as a consumer favorite.
Know What I Mean? isn’t a milestone in jazz or in the careers of Adderley or Evans for that matter. There are in fact two prior Adderley releases that feature Evans, both recorded in 1958, a quintet session Portrait of Cannonball for Riverside and an orchestral date Jump for Joy for EmArcy, but this final collaboration is the best of the bunch, a thoroughly enjoyable set and furthermore distinct as it captures Adderley at his most expressive as the sole horn, while Evans’ creativity, integral to the record’s success, flows forth without being dominant point of focus.
The opening version of the cornerstone Evans composition “Waltz for Debby” is case in point, as Adderley’s entrance after the pianist’s stately opening gives the tune’s swing-shift an extra boost and without steamrolling the foundational beauty. By early 1961, the year Know What I Mean? was recorded in NYC, “Waltz for Debby,” now a standard and heard on numerous subsequent Evans releases, had been recorded only once before, on the pianist’s 1956 studio debut New Jazz Conceptions.
The recording here predates the live version titling the Evans Trio’s 1962 album by a few months, though Adderley’s LP entered the marketplace later in that year. And so, on Know What I Mean? “Waltz for Debby” is just a fine composition that thrives in a collective approach that’s casual but sharp and unburdened by expectations.
A switch to ballad mode with “Goodbye,” a tune well-known by 1962 as Benny Goodman’s closing concert theme, shines through Adderly’s expressiveness, at once robust and beautiful, and Evans’ increasingly fleet navigation of the keyboard during his solo. The energy rises in the version of the Gershwin’s chestnut “Who Cares?” that follows, the tempo quickened and the playing spirited. Next comes a downshift in the John Lewis tune “Venice,” which has a touch of bluesy swing about it.
Lewis was a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet alongside vibraphonist Milt Jackson the rhythm section of Know What I Mean?, which makes the inclusion of “Venice” here unsurprising; Heath and Kay knew it well. As Evans plays differently than in his celebrated trios, Heath and Kay are rooted firmly in post-bop regions.
To expand, in “Venice,” Heath’s bass is firm and Kay’s drumming light and subtle; across the LP they lend the down-tempo numbers faultless support, nowhere better than across the successive selections “Elsa” (by Earl Zindars, a favored composer of Evans) and “Nancy (With the Laughing Face)” (a Jimmy Van Heusen standard).
Heath and Kay also secure the livelier pieces with the necessary momentum, and particularly during the joyous dive into Clifford Jordan’s “Toy,” where the saxophonist’s melodic turns are a highlight. By this album Adderley’s mastery of the alto found him standing far from the shadow of Charlie Parker. Fittingly, the entire quartet excels in the album’s other Evans’ composition, the structurally broad closing title cut.
Although Adderley and Evans had been involved with a making of masterpieces including a few of their own (e.g. Everybody Digs Bill Evans and Somethin’ Else), the careers of both men were still on the rise at the time they recorded Know What I Mean?. It remains a rare gift to hear them thriving in this relatively relaxed atmosphere.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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