LP REVIEW: are the stars aligning or not, with Cannonball Adderley, Rick Holmes, The Nat Adderley Sextet – Soul Zodiac, 1972
CAPITOL RECORDS, JAPAN ISSUE, SVB 11025, STEREO, 2x Vinyl, Gatefold Sleeve
ARTIST
There are several artists mentioned on the album’s title, so let’s unpack who does what:
Julian Edwin “Cannonball” Adderley was an American jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era – the 1950s and 1960s. A famous name in jazz – he played with Miles Davis on ‘Kind of Blue’. His schoolmates gave him the nickname “cannonball” (or, “cannibal”) because he liked to eat a lot 🙂 His name features prominently on the cover of our review album and understandably people often – mistakenly – credit it to him. In fact, he only played on two of the tracks.
Most of the work is done by his brother Nat Adderley, a trumpet player, who worked with his own sextet in the seventies and eighties. He and the other musicians do the majority of the playing on this album. You can read a short bio HERE.
Rick Holmes was an American actor. Born in 1963, he has played numerous stage roles, including roles in Broadway productions such as Cabaret, Spamalot and others. His ‘thing’ was astrology. On this album, he narrates every song.
LABEL
Capitol Records is one of the famous labels from the golden age of recording. In their 75+ year history, they nurtured all of the jazz greats, The Beatles, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, and too many others to mention. Thousands of artists passed through their doors.
Back in 1942, Capitol Records was founded when the great American songwriters’ Johnny Mercer and Buddy DeSylva, teamed up with record store owner Glenn E. Wallichs to set up the first West Coast-based record label in the United States. On April 6th, 1942, Mercer supervised Capitol Records’ first-ever recording session with Martha Tilton on the song ‘Moon Dreams’ and the rest, as they say, is history.
Capitol Records took its name from the fact that Hollywood was considered the entertainment capital of the world and the logo looked a little like the Capitol dome in Washington.
MUSIC
This is a somewhat different experience as the album marries narration with music – and I mean a lot of narration. I estimate between 30-40% of the album is Rick Holmes talking. These guys were on a mission.
The liner notes go into some detail about the theme, Astrology. Rick Holmes was a well known radio personality and actor in the greater Los Angeles area in the seventies. He had an affinity with astrology and this record was meant to enhance people’s awareness of it.
The music is cosmic in a hippie kind of way. It’s jazz fusion or electronic jazz, a little like Miles Davis was playing in the seventies and eighties (think of albums like Decoy, You’re Under Arrest, We Want Miles, etc). But the music serves the narration and the theme, so it’s less of a listen than these excellent Miles albums. I found a huge review + lots of pictures, so if you want to dive in click HERE.
Let me try and say three positive things about this album; a) the cover lady is beautiful, b) if you know someone who is into astrology, this makes for a very original gift, the gatefold sleeve has a nice design as well, and c) if you’re ever in the mood to throw a 70’s hippie party you should put this on.
You can listen to the entire album on youtube HERE.
RAW STORE
This album is not available online so you need to go to the store and ask Yassine or Sam, it’s a double album in pretty good shape, it has a Japanese language multi-page insert, and it costs 160 AED.
Wear a sixties t-shirt, go to the store and just tell them ‘peace man’ and you may get a discount 🙂
PERSONNEL
- Alto Saxophone – Cannonball Adderley (track: A2)
- Soprano Saxophone – Cannonball Adderley (track: A3)
- Cornet – Nat Adderley
- Double Bass, Guitar – Walter Booker
- Drums – Roy McCurdy
- Electric Piano [Fender Rhodes] – George Duke
- Guitar – Mike Deasy
- Tenor Saxophone, Flute, Tambourine – Ernie Watts
- Narrator – Rick Holmes
TRACKS
- A1 Introduction 3:00
- A2 Aries 4:52
- A3 Libra 3:15
- A4 Capricorn 6:10
- B1 Aquarius 7:47
- B2 Pisces 3:53
- B3 Sagittarius 5:15
- C1 Gemini 4:35
- C2 Leo 2:51
- C3 Virgo 4:10
- C4 Scorpio 4:23
- D1 Cancer 2:45
- D2 Taurus 13:52