Adderley, Julian "Cannonball" - Liederhalle Stuttgart 1969

The first attempt failed. When Nat and his older brother Julian "Cannonball" Adderley tried to form a quintet in the mid-1950s, hardly anyone was interested in the newcomers from Florida. In hindsight, this turned out to be a positive development. Trumpeter Nat ended up joining the bands of Jay Jay Johnson and George Shearing, where he honed his elegant blues-bopping ensemble playing under expert guidance. Alto saxophonist Cannonball, on the other hand, became Miles Davis's counterpart to tenor saxophonist John Coltrane for a good four years, a period he later described as the most artistically important of his life. When the brothers reunited in 1959, they had both matured and were ready to lead one of the most successful jazz bands of the 1960s. Unlike their experimental colleagues, who tested the boundaries of music but increasingly lost their audience, the Cannonball Adderley Quintet managed to reach a large audience with hits such as "This Here," "Work Song," "Jive Samba," and above all, "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." No wonder, then, that the Cannonball Adderley Quintet was greeted with a wave of applause at the Liederhalle in Stuttgart in 1969. Complemented by bassist Victor Gaskin and drummer Roy McCurdy, they had brought just the right repertoire with them.