Cannonball Adderley: Swingin’ In Seattle: Live at the Penthouse 1966-1967

In the Sixties, disc jockey Jim Wilke had a regular jazz show on Seattle radio station KING-FM, often featuring half-hour remote broadcasts from the city’s Penthouse club. Resonance Records put out a Wes Montgomery CD drawn from Wilke’s archives, and now Zev Feldman, the producer of that set, has teamed up with Cory Weeds to form a new label they call Reel To Real. Drawing once again on Wilke’s tape collection, their first release is Swingin’ In Seattle: Live at the Penthouse 1966-1967, 73 glorious minutes of the Cannonball Adderley quintet with brother Nat Adderley on cornet and a rhythm section of pianist Joe Zawinul, bassist Victor Gaskin, and drummer Roy McCurdy. This unit could swing like mad, and they prove it time and again in this set on tunes like Jimmy Heath’s Big “P”, Cannonball’s own Sticks, and Zawinul’s 74 Miles Away. Long-time fans will recall snippets of Cannonball speaking on some of his early Riverside live recording, and so the producers of Swingin’ In Seattle have wisely decided to include many of Cannonball’s introductions and comments on the songs. Just like the Resonance releases, the package includes a lengthy booklet. There are period photos, notes by Feldman and journalist Bill Kopp, plus interviews with Olga Adderley (Cannonball’s widow), drummer Roy McCurdy, and saxophonist Vincent Herring. While that’s all well and good, it would have been nice to include the names of the composers in the label copy. There’s also the problem of pinning down the actual recording dates. The back cover has one set of dates which are contradicted in the notes. But it’s really the music that counts, and this document of one of the most celebrated jazz groups of the era is a most welcome addition to their stellar discography.
Reel To Real RTRCD001; Nat Adderley (cnt) Cannonball Adderley (as) Joe Zawinul (p) Victor Gaskin (b) Roy McCurdy (d); Seattle, WA, October 6 & 13, 1966 and June 15 & 22, 1967 (probably; the back cover and liner notes do not agree); Jim Wilke Intro/ Big “P”/ Spoken Outro/ Spoken Intro/ The Girl Next Door/ Spoken Intro/ Sticks/ Spoken Outro/ Spoken Intro/ The Morning of the Carnival (Manhã de Carnaval)/ Spoken Outro/ Spoken Intro/ Somewhere/ Jim Wilke Intro/ 74 Miles Away/ Spoken Outro/ Back Home Blues/ Hippodelphia/ Set-closing Outro; 73:03. cellarlive.com