Essential Jazz Classics RLR88666 | Miles Davis (t), Cannonball Adderley (as), John Coltrane, Bobby Jaspar (ts), Don Elliott (vbs, mellophone), Chuck Wayne (g), Wynton Kelly, Tommy Flanagan, Beryl Booker (p), Paul Chambers, Clyde Lombardi (b), Jimmy Cobb, and Connie Kay (d). Rec. 26 April 1952, October 1957, 7 August 1959 and 25 August 1959

Soon after Birdland opened its doors in December 1949, radio station WJZ began broadcasting nightly live and direct from the Broadway club’s bandstand. Meanwhile, out there in the dark, dedicated amateur recordists captured these early morning government sponsored airshots on all manner of (often primitive) equipment. As a result, audio quality often left much to be desired. Whether these recordings are, as the sleeve proclaims, previously unissued is open to debate when taking into account the current proliferation of unofficial releases. The main point of interest here is that the surprisingly well recorded versions of both ‘The Theme’ and ‘So What’ were performed one fateful night (August 25 1959) just prior to racist members of New York’s ‘finest’ savagely attacking Miles who was taking a breather between sets on the sidewalk outside the club.

So this places these two majestic performances in context while an equally forceful version of ‘So What’ taped on August 7 during the first Playboy Jazz Festival at the Chicago Stadium captures the sextet reduced to a five-piece (Coltrane’s replacement, Jimmy Heath, couldn’t make the gig as he was on police parole), so Cannonball stepped up to the plate to file one of his most electrifying live performances. Had the remaining material featuring Bobby Jaspar or Miles sitting in with Beryl Booker been of listenable quality then it would have garnered a higher rating.

– Roy Carr