Happy Birthday, Cannonball

Thank you to Don-Lucky for pointing out that this would have been Cannonball Adderley’s 81st birthday. I’ll never forget where I was when Cannonball died back in August 1975. I was driving my car in Auburn, N.Y., where I was just breaking in as a newspaper reporter. I had to pull over to compose myself. Cannonball was always a big figure for me because he was a favorite of my father’s and I saw him a few times as a kid and also because the album Live At The Lighthouse was the first or second record that really set me on the path to becoming a jazz fan and, eventually, a jazz collector. For my money, after Bird there was Cannon on alto and then a big gap to whoever would be next. I’ve been putting records on eBay lately, a lot of duplicates, and I listen to parts of them before I post them. Every time I put on a Cannonball record, particularly the early ones on Mercury, I am surprised and amazed once again at just how much he had under his fingers and how naturally he swung and how everything he did was just great. So, Happy Birthday, indeed. By the way,

I am off-site for most of the week and not getting good access to eBay, so I may not be able to do some of my normal posting about eBay prices and trends. So, if you notice a slight change in tone this week, it’s a result of access and not intent. But, I do have to say, it is great to see all of the comments and people pointing to other Web sites and pointing out records on eBay that I may have missed.