The already very well-rehearsed Cannonball Adderley Quintet was even more harmonized with each other after an extended European tour, so that this circumstance should be heard as a clear PLUS on this 1961 session recorded immediately afterwards. But in order not to leave anything to chance, another PLUS was added with pianist Wynton Kelly, another pronounced tonal color. Like everything from Mr. Adderley and his combo always very stylistically assured between funky soul-jazz and hardbop maneuvering, good-humored, with ease, flair and full of musical and technical finesse.

Not every record has to be a milestone in jazz history, this one isn’t either, but testimony to an influential, very popular combo that knew above all how to infuse jazz with a distinct dash of feeling: ‚the „soul“ aspect of jazz: music that is rustic in design, semi-religious in flavor, heavily rooted in the blues.‘ Nothing to add – great record!

Stefan Mohr