Miles Davis barely played sideman after 1955. He did it on March 9, 1958, at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. The record is Somethin' Else. Cannonball Adderley's name is on the cover. Blue Note put it out that August, catalog BLP 1595. It's the only album Cannonball ever made for the label. It's also one of the best records either man ever played on.
Here's the part I love. Cannonball was in Miles's band at the time. He'd joined the quintet and they'd just cut Milestones together. So on this date the roles flip. The sideman becomes the leader. The leader becomes the sideman. On paper anyway.
Because listen to the record and it gets funny. Miles picked most of the tunes. Miles wrote the title track. Miles takes the first solo on almost everything. The original liner notes basically admit it. So who's actually leading this session? The answer is it doesn't matter. Nobody in the room cared and you shouldn't either. What matters is what got on tape.
The band is stacked. Hank Jones on piano. Sam Jones on bass. Art Blakey on drums. That's three guys who never made a bad record between them. And Blakey is the interesting one here. He's the loudest drummer in jazz. On this date he holds back. He still swings hard, he just does it under the horns instead of over them. It might be the most restrained playing of his career and it's perfect for the material.
The opener is Autumn Leaves and it's the reason to own this record. Almost eleven minutes. Miles plays the melody through a Harmon mute over a dark minor vamp and it barely sounds like the same song everybody else was playing in 1958. He said he got the idea from Ahmad Jamal. That's right in the original liner notes. Jamal was doing spare arrangements with tons of space in Chicago and Miles took the concept and ran with it. Then Cannonball comes in and does the opposite. Big, bluesy, joyful alto all over the changes. That contrast is the whole record.
Love for Sale closes side one and Miles liked the tune enough to cut it again with his own sextet two months later. The title track is a Miles blues, mid register, no hurry. Then there's One for Daddy-O, which Nat Adderley wrote for a Chicago disc jockey. At the end of that take Miles leans toward the booth and asks, "Is that what you wanted, Alfred?" He's talking to Alfred Lion, the Blue Note founder, who produced the date. They left it on the record. Sixty eight years later it's still the coolest thing anyone ever said on a jazz album. Dancing in the Dark wraps it up as a Cannonball ballad feature and he sings through the horn on it. The whole thing runs under forty minutes.
There's a bigger story here too. This session sits right between Milestones and Kind of Blue. A year after this date, Cannonball was in the studio with Miles making the biggest jazz record of all time. You can hear that record coming on Somethin' Else. The space. The slower tempos. The blues sitting underneath everything. This is the bridge. If you love Kind of Blue and you want to know what led up to it, this is the answer.
A word on pressings. An original 1595 with the deep groove and the West 63rd labels goes for serious money now. Four figures for a clean one. Skip it unless you're a completist with cash to burn. The Blue Note Classic Vinyl reissue was cut from tape by Kevin Gray and it sounds amazing. Around thirty bucks. Van Gelder's Hackensack sound comes through, the horns sit right up front, Sam Jones has real weight. That's the move. I say this on Vinyl Standard all the time. The reissue market is the best it's ever been and there's no shame in a new pressing that sounds this good.
This is a Sunday record for me. Side one is Autumn Leaves and Love for Sale, which is about as good as any album side in jazz. Pour a glass of something, drop the needle, just let it ride. It asks nothing from you and gives you everything.
Five guys, one afternoon in Hackensack, under forty minutes of music. Cannonball's only Blue Note album and Miles's last great sideman date. I love this album. If you don't own it, fix that.