Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans
Know What I Mean? (1961)
Analogue Productions Hybrid SACD (2002) – Red Book Layer
1. Waltz For Debby
2. Goodbye
3. Who Cares?
4. Venice
5. Toy
6. Elsa
7. Nancy (With The Laughing Face)*
8. Know What I Mean?(retake 7)*
9. Who Cares?*
10. Know What I Mean?*
*Bonus Tracks
Jullian “Cannonball” Adderley – alto saxophone
Bill Evans – piano
Percy Heath – bass
Connie Kay – drums
Recorded at Bell Sound Studios, New York City; January 27 (#2-3, 7, 9-10), February 21 (5,6), and March 13 (1,4,8) 1961.
Recording Engineer: Bill Stoddard
Mastering Engineer: Doug Sax
“This music was recorded using only vacuum-tube components. As this is the primary reason the sound is so lush and natural, Doug Sax mastered this recording from the original analog tapes using the Mastering Lab’s proprietary all-tube electronics until the final digital conversion.
Sax used the latest third-generation Analog-to-DSD coverters by Ed Meitner/EMM Labs to transfer the music to the SACD layer. The CD layer was transferred directly to the SOny PCM 1630 system through a modified George Massenburd A/D converter. We feel that this approach demonstrates the finest merits of each format”.
Review by Rick Anderson (AMG)
What’s better than a Bill Evans Trio album? How about a Bill Evans trio album on which the bassist is Percy Heath, the drummer is Connie Kay, and the leader is not Evans but alto sax god Cannonball Adderley, making the group actually a quartet? It’s a different sort of ensemble, to be sure, and the musical results are marvelous. Adderley’s playing on “Waltz for Debby” is both muscular and sensitive, as it is on the other Evans composition here, a modal ballad called “Know What I Mean?” Other treats include the sprightly “Toy” and two takes of the Gershwin classic “Who Cares?” The focus here is, of course, on Adderley’s excellent post-bop stylings, but it’s also interesting to hear Evans playing with a rhythm section as staid and conservative as Kay and Heath (both charter members of the Modern Jazz Quartet). It’s hard to imagine any fan of mainstream jazz not finding much to love on this very fine recording.