js :”The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco” was one of Cannonball’s first albums with his new group, coming after his successful work with Miles Davis, and features some of the best recorded solos of his career. Prior to this recording, Adderley had joined with Miles to record hallmark jazz albums such as “Kind of Blue” and “Something Else”. Needless to say, his career was on fire at this time, and his new quintet did not disappoint with his brother Nat supplying high register trumpet flights and Bobby Timmons pounding out bluesy rhythms on the piano along with Sam Jones on bass and the innovative and under-rated Louis Hayes on drums.

Side one features two lengthy blues based workouts in a hard bop style that borders on soul jazz, pretty much what you could expect from Julian at this point in his career. Side two opens in a similar fashion, but then "you Got It" veers into a slightly more experimental direction foreshadowing some of the things that would soon be coming from Miles’ new quintet, and "Bohemia After Dark" is classic high speed bop. Throughout this entire album, Cannonball’s playing is on fire and features his strong devotion to Charlie Parker, particularly on the two closing cuts. In addition to the Parker influence, Adderley also shows an interest in the new style jazz/blues soloists like Stanley Turrentine. As mentioned earlier, the rest of Julian’s band is stellar, with honorable mention going to drummer Louis Hayes and his work on “You Got It”, a track that features interesting drum breaks that foreshadow much of what Tony Williams would be doing in a few years.

The recording quality of these tracks is quite good, the only slight problem being that the piano could be a bit louder at times, but its no big deal. The CD version has some bonus tracks, but the LP version that was used to write this review has that great unfiltered analog sound. This is highly recommended for fans of the Adderley Brothers and late 50s hard bop.