- Biafra (Nat Adderley)
- Haifa (Nat Adderley)
- St. M (William S. Fischer)
- Grey Moss (Joe Zawinul)
- Nobody Knows (William S. Fischer)
- Comin’ Out the Shadows (Nat Adderley)
- Ivan’s Holiday (Joe Zawinul)
- Calling Out Loud (Nat Adderley/William S. Fischer)
Nat Adderley – cornet
Joe Zawinul – electric piano
Ron Carter – bass
Leo Morris [Idris Muhammad] – drums
Paul Ingraham – French horn
Seldon Powell, Jerome Richardson – saxophone
Danny Bank, Jerry Dodgion, Richard Henderson – saxophone (01)
Hubert Laws – flute, piccolo
Donald MacCourt – bassoon
George Marge – saxophone (01), clarinet, English horn
Romeo Penque – bass clarinet
Produced by Creed Taylor
Arranged and conducted by William S. Fischer
Originally issued as A&M SP 3017
also issued as COMIN’ OUT OF THE SHADOWS (A&M AMLB 51203 [England])
and LLAMANDO A VOCES (A&M 371-31 [Spain])
Recorded on November 19 (06, 07) and 21 (01, 05) and December 4 (02-04, 08), 1968, at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
01, 02, 06 and 08 published by Upam Music Co. (BMI)
03 and 05 published by Ready Productions, Inc. (ASCAP)
04 and 07 published by Zawinul Music (BMI)
(P) 1969
In between the Cannonball Adderley Quintet’s Accent on Africa (1968) and Country Preacher (1969), brother Nat Adderley waxed his second and final A&M/CTI album, Calling Out Loud. Conspiring again with keyboardist/composer Joe Zawinul and arranger/composer Bill Fischer, Nat presents more of a consolidated suite of themes here than a collection of covers and blowing tunes. The result makes for a more cohesive package than You, Baby – and one that better represents the talents of its three main contributors. Even Nat’s amplified cornet sounds well-integrated and more personal here than it had earlier.
Each of the album’s eight tracks are group originals, one of the few in the A&M/CTI catalog, apart from the Jobim and Nascimento albums programmed in such a way. Also returning from You, Baby is bassist Ron Carter, who pairs beautifully with Adderley and Zawinul throughout. “Ron Carter is so involved with what’s going down,” Fischer aptly says in his liner notes, “that you’d think he’d contemplated every shift, pulse, and motif, rhythmic or melodic, for hours before recording.”
Replacing Grady Tate on drums is Leo Morris (a.k.a. Idris Muhammad), whose New Orleans swagger offers an altogether different – and funkier – flavor to the proceedings. Fischer does away with the strings and winds approach of the earlier album, couching Calling Out Loud with his signature blend of horns, featuring Jerome Richardson and George Marge from Adderley’s earlier LP and deftly adding Hubert Laws to the mix.
Opening with Nat’s bracing and hypnotic “Biafra,” a title which, when combined with the album’s title track, hints at a political agenda. Named for the secessionist West African state that existed from 1967 to 1970, Adderley’s tribute endures more memorably. It is one of his most complex and thoughtful pieces and elicits one of his finest performances on record.
Continuing Adderley’s musically scenic travelogue, we head to the gently lyrical “Haifa,” named for the northern Israeli port city long celebrated as a relative haven for coexistence between Jews and Arabs. Although Fischer is coy about it in his notes, the musical evidence of his “St. M” would indicate the “M” stands for Miles (Davis) – after all, Zawinul, who solos magnificently here, was just beginning his association with the trumpeter when Calling Out Loud was recorded.1 Zawinul’s “Grey Moss” flows seamlessly into one of the finest and least known fusions of jazz and rock – a template for the historic things to come with Davis’ electric group.
Side two opens with Fischer’s swinger “Nobody Knows,” which riffs off the changes of the African-American spiritual “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” While, again, suggesting something political is going on here, the tune is buoyant and cheerful until the solos come in, amping things up a good notch or two. Adderley is especially Milesian here, coaxed by Carter’s superb suggestion of “A Love Supreme” at one point.
The title “Comin’ Out the Shadows” seems to propose some sort of protest, but sure enough its anthemic quality is in the Adderley Quintet’s trademark good-time groove, complete with yet another splendid showcase for Zawinul and even a brief spot for Laws (Fischer’s minimalistic flourishes here recall Gary McFarland’s work at the time).
This takes us to Zawinul’s lyrically lilting “Ivan’s Holiday.” Keeping the mood light, the cleverly realized song is neither as heavy and bombastic as something third-stream nor as corny and conventional as an overly-orchestrated instrumental. Ron Carter carries the melody bodily with his majestic lines on bass. Winding up with the album’s all-too brief title track, we are again in ambiguously African funk territory. But the quiet riot Adderley, Zawinul and Fischer explore here suggests much more of this terrain could have been successfully traversed.
Harvey Siders raved that “Calling Out Loud has practically no weaknesses” in his four-star DownBeat review2 : “[I]t’s rewarding to hear one of jazzdom’s most underrated cornetists stretch out in the solo spotlight in front of the multi-hued sounds charted by Bill Fisher.” He adds: “the entire album is an outstanding showcase for so many talents: excellent support by Zawinul’s gossamer keyboard comping; Hubert Laws’ tasteful flute phrases; and the amazing lift everyone gets from Ron Carter’s muscular bass lines; but above all, the one-two combination (a la Miles-Evans) of solos by Adderley and body by Fischer.”
After Calling Out Loud, Nat Adderley devoted himself fully to touring and recording with the Cannonball Adderley Quintet until the saxophonist’s untimely death in August 1975. During that time ,Nat recorded three albums under his own name, Soul Zodiac (1972) and Soul of the Bible (1972), both with narration by Los Angeles DJ Rick Holmes, and Double Exposure (1975).
Upon Cannonball’s death, Nat disbanded the Quintet, toured Europe and resumed recording sporadically for a variety of labels – including a fine concert recording from 1977 on Pablo with fellow CTI-alum J.J. Johnson – until his death in 2002 at age 68.
The excellent Calling Out Loud represents a pinnacle in Nat Adderley’s discography and is certainly among the artistic triumphs of the A&M/CTI catalog. It is a landmark among early fusion albums and, in its own way, a precursor to Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way, one that stands up well to its better-known rival in every possible way.
About the cover: [unknown title] (Hong Kong): Another change in the frame here. We’re back to Antupit’s original design, but the previous white frame is out and mylar is in. That, indeed, must have stood out on a record store’s shelves. But the effect is more gimmicky than grand. Pete Turner had apparently always wanted to photograph fireworks, though it’s not clear why unexploded fireworks were so appealing to a master of capturing fireballs and volcanoes with such distinction. Still, coupled with the mylar frame, the cover “pops” visually in a way that the music does within – and, surprisingly, this is one of the least “pop” oriented albums in the series. Nat Adderley, on the back sleeve, gets an appropriately natty portrait. He appears proud of his accomplishment here, as well he should.
Endnotes:
- Calling Out Loud was recorded over three sessions: November 19 and 21 and December 4, 1968. Zawinul’s first sessions with Miles Davis were November 25 (“Splashdown”) and 27 (the Zawinul compositions “Ascent,” “Directions I” and “Directions II” – first issued on the 1981 LP Directions). “St. M” is one of four pieces from the Adderley album recorded during the December 4 session, thereby coming after Zawinul’s debut with Davis. The seminal In A Silent Way was recorded in February 1969 and issued three months after Calling Out Loud in July of that year. ↩︎
- Harvey Siders, “Nat Adderley: The Scavenger/Calling Out Loud,” DownBeat, January 8, 1970, p. 18. ↩︎