Nat Adderley....

Nat Adderley may have spent a significant part of his career in the shadow of his better known older brother, the alto saxophonist Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley, but he was always a major contributor to their shared projects, and achieved a great deal in his own right after his brother's death in 1975.

He was born Nathaniel Adderley, and took up trumpet as a teenager in 1946. He began playing in local bands in Florida, and made what became a career long switch to the smaller cornet in 1950. He did so against the prevailing tide. Cornet had been the horn of choice for New Orleans trumpet players in the early days of jazz, but had fallen out of fashion in favour of trumpet by the bop era.

Adderley evolved a distinctive signature on the instrument, blending a rich tone and earthy warmth with the horn's inherent touch of astringency to great effect. He played in an army band for a time during his military service from 1951-3, then joined the band led by vibraphonist Lionel Hampton in 1954, his first association with an established jazz figure. He remained with Hampton until 1955, and cut his earliest recordings for the Savoy and EmArcy labels that same year.

Cannonball Adderley had made an early mark in New York when he sat in with bassist Oscar Pettiford at the Cafe Bohemia in Greenwich Village in 1955, but that did not translate into immediate success when the brothers joined forces in Cannonball's Quintet the following year. He broke up the group in 1957, and Nat worked with trombonist J. J. Johnson and bandleader Woody Herman before reuniting with his brother in 1959.

The earlier lack of success quickly evaporated. The band's funky, gospel-tinged jazz became one of the most successful sounds on the hard bop and soul jazz circuit, and they even scored an unexpected chart hit with 'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy' in 1966. Cannonball had featured alongside John Coltrane in Miles Davis's classic Sextet which made the legendary Kind of Blue album in 1959, and that association provided the boost he needed to take off as a star in his own right, with the cornetist very much his right hand man.

Nat had continued to record under his own leadership, and made his most famous record for the Riverside label in January, 1960, with a band which featured guitarist Wes Montgomery. The resulting album, Work Song , included the tune which remains his best known composition, 'The Work Song'. Its bluesy call-and-response chorus was an emblematic example of the hard bop style of the period, and is still widely played.

It became a mainstay of the Adderley's as well as the hard bop repertoire, but was not the only composition by the cornetist to do so. His significant contributions as a composer also include widely performed tunes like 'Jive Samba', 'Hummin'', 'Sermonette', and 'The Old Country'.

His role as a soloist was no less significant, and he was equally adept at uptempo hard bop excursions and richly delineated ballads. Miles Davis had been an early influence on his style, but he developed a highly individual and very expressive voice of his own, which included a sparing but effective use of the very low registers of the horn. Nat remained a central part of his brother's various projects until the saxophonist's unexpected and premature death from a stroke in 1975. Their collaboration included an ambitious but very uneven "folk musical" based on the tale of the mythical black hero figure, John Henry, with lyrics by Diane Lampert and Peter Farrow. It was released on record as Big Man (Fantasy) in 1975, with the late Joe Williams singing the title role, and soul diva Randy Crawford making her recording debut as Big John's woman, Carolina.

A concert performance was given at Carnegie Hall the following year as a tribute to the saxophonist, and a full theatrical production under the title Shout Up A Morning was eventually staged at the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington and the La Jolla Playhouse in California in 1986.
It became a mainstay of the Adderley's as well as the hard bop repertoire, but was not the only composition by the cornetist to do so. His significant contributions as a composer also include widely performed tunes like 'Jive Samba', 'Hummin'', 'Sermonette', and 'The Old Country'.

His role as a soloist was no less significant, and he was equally adept at uptempo hard bop excursions and richly delineated ballads. Miles Davis had been an early influence on his style, but he developed a highly individual and very expressive voice of his own, which included a sparing but effective use of the very low registers of the horn. Nat remained a central part of his brother's various projects until the saxophonist's unexpected and premature death from a stroke in 1975. Their collaboration included an ambitious but very uneven "folk musical" based on the tale of the mythical black hero figure, John Henry, with lyrics by Diane Lampert and Peter Farrow. It was released on record as Big Man (Fantasy) in 1975, with the late Joe Williams singing the title role, and soul diva Randy Crawford making her recording debut as Big John's woman, Carolina.
A concert performance was given at Carnegie Hall the following year as a tribute to the saxophonist, and a full theatrical production under the title Shout Up A Morning was eventually staged at the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington and the La Jolla Playhouse in California in 1986.

Discography


1955 Introducing Nat Adderley EmArcy
1955 That's Nat Adderley Savoy
1956 To the Ivy League from Nat EmArcy
1958 Branching Out Riverside/OJC
1959 Much Brass Original Jazz Classics
1960 That's Right!: Nat Adderley & The Big Sax Section Riverside/OJC
1960 Work Song [Riverside] Riverside/OJC
1961 Naturally! Jazzland
1962 In the Bag Jazzland/OJC
1963 Little Big Horn Riverside
1963 Natural Soul Milestone
1964 Autobiography Atlantic
1966 Live at Memory Lane Atlantic
1966 Sayin' Somethin' Atlantic
1968 Calling Out Loud A&M
1968 The Scavenger Milestone
1968 You Baby A&M
1970 Love, Sex and the Zodiac Fantasy
1972 Soul of the Bible Capitol
1972 The Soul Zodiac Capitol
1974 Double Exposure Prestige
1976 Don't Look Back Inner City
1976 Hummin' Little David
1978 A Little New York Midtown Music Galaxy
1982 Blue Autumn [live] Evidence
1982 On the Move [live] Theresa
1989 We Remember Cannon In & Out
1990 Autumn Leaves [live] Evidence
1990 Talkin' About You Landmark
1990 The Old Country Enja
1990 Work Song [Peter Pan] [live] Peter Pan
1992 Workin' Timeless
1993 Working Sound Service
1994 Good Company Jazz Challenge
1994 Live at the 1994 Floating Jazz Festival Chiaroscuro
1995 Live on Planet Earth Westwind
1995 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy Evidence
Source: AllMusic.com
http://www.jazztrumpetsolos.com/Nat_Adderley_Biography.asp