Somethin' Else
CANNONBALL ADDERLEY
(Blue Note)

This much-loved album, featuring an aggregation of jazz all-stars and almost-stars (Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Sam Jones, Hank Jones) remains remarkably cohesive while covering quite a bit of post-bop stylistic territory. Alto saxophonist Adderley was part of Miles' band at the time, so there's a bit of the Milestones-type ease and expansiveness; but the group also delves into hard-bop, soul-bop, blues and a couple of transcendent ballads. Adderley's dexterous playing is a marvel, and Miles sounds terrific. Somethin' Else is one of the discs I recommend to jazz neophytes as a gateway drug.

This article appears in Dec 12-18, 2007.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...