A Song for Father’s Day

Saturday night is my #JazzurdayNight, and as the clock went past midnight on this recent Saturday to become Sunday and Father’s Day, the time drew near to play my favorite father-related song, Cannonball Adderley’s One for Daddy-O from the five-star album Somethin’ Else.

At some point in my jazz-fan lifetime, I had heard OF Miles Davis but had not yet HEARD Miles Davis. And at some point in my jazz-fan lifetime, I found myself in my car listening to a jazz show on the local public radio station. And sometime during that point, I heard a SOUND unlike any other. The sound was stark in its purity. It was piercing like a knife and yet it was also as soft as butter. The sound was insistent and intentional in its own rhythm while still containing itself within the tempo of the song.

While my mind was being blown, it was working through its Rolodex of trumpeters. Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Clark Terry, Freddie Hubbard, Wynton, Bix, Diz. They all could sound like this at times but not all at the same time. Louis, maybe. But this wasn’t Satchmo. This SOUND was “somethin’ else.”

And then my mind said to me, “This must be Miles Davis.”

Sometimes the show’s host names the players at the start of the song and sometimes he does that at the end of the song. I was praying for the end of the song. That prayer was answered, as the host confirmed my speculative suspicion.

Pleased to meet you. Glad I guessed your name.

A little history on the track[1]:

• Cannonball Adderley’s album Somethin’ Else was recorded in 1958 while he was a member of Miles’ quintet, and it was one of the few recordings Miles made as a sideman after 1955.
• One for Daddy-O was written by Adderley’s brother Nat for the legendary radio DJ “Daddy-O” Daylie, who was a pioneer of black radio.
• At the end of the track, you hear Miles ask producer Alfred Lion, “Is that what you wanted, Alfred?”
• Finally, Cannonball and Miles would famously play together on the 1959 landmark Kind of Blue, regarded by many critics as the greatest jazz record ever recorded, and one of the best albums of any genre of all time.

Enjoy.

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[1] My Crack Research Staff went to Wikipedia so you wouldn’t have to.