Cannibal Adderley

Jazz it does something to the head.  It makes me want to just talk without actually thinking about how the words interact with each other.  I want to concentrate on the sensation of the words rather than there meaning – don’t lose track I am still talking about Jazz music.  I want to focus on the word’s immediate meaning without regard to how it relates or correlates with each subsequent or previous word, truly appreciating the immediate sensation of now.  That is what jazz does to the head.

Does that mean it is an abomination to man?  Is it only good for promoting ignorance and temporal, carnal pleasure? Did black people playing jazz eventually lead to black people playing ‘rap music’?  The answer is Yes. 

So now I am just sitting in my venetian arm chair blowing bubbles out of my plastic cob pipe, lazily snapping my fingers to an eccentric beat. With each flick on the high-hat there is a slight flick at the wrist as if I am passing bread crumbs to pigeons out on time square, or maybe it is like passing small coins to bums on dank street corners.  Anyway, the pseudo-eccentric drummer bangs away, and all the while Cannonball Adderley eats everybody alive.  Still I just sit.

I guess Miles Davis didn’t like Cannonball. He used to call him cannibal Adderley, on account of the whole eat-people-alive thing.   Jazz pianists, drummers, saxists (maybe that’s not a word), bassists and whoever else had soul enough to play with good ol’ Cannibal Adderley would, well, you can guess what happened to them.  Basically, Adderley would take their limbs off their body, use their own instruments to crush their vital organs (heart, brain, kidneys, and intestines) and then eat them, figuratively of course. 

He was noted for “swallowing people with his solos”.  He said he couldn’t stop soloing because he didn’t know how.  To this Miles said “pull the damn horn out of your mouth, that’s how you stop”.  I think, kids, there is a good lesson in all this.