Guest post by Nathan Arizona
Jazz players are comfortable in their own world, where people don’t often ask “where’s the melody?” or “why can’t I dance to this?” But sometimes the world of pop music can be a rocky place where their music can find no listeners.
So it wasn’t the usual thing in 1966 for a jazz song to shoot up the Billboard pop chart all the way to 11. But alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley’s “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!” did just that. A pop-rock band, the Buckinghams, liked it so much they covered it the next year and found themselves sitting at No. 5 on the pop charts with a jazz tune.
It also wasn’t usual for any kind of artist to say he recorded his music someplace where he didn’t, but more about that later.
Adderley was no jazz lightweight close to pop anyway. He was the real deal. They called him “the next Charlie Parker” when he entered the world of mainstream jazz in the mid-’50s. He was championed by jazz great Miles Davis. Adderley joined a Davis sextet that included John Coltrane and became one of the most storied groups in the history of jazz. He was on the iconic 1959 Davis album “Kind of Blue.”
But mainstream jazz was changing in the ‘60s. Bebop had been around for two decades and a lot of jazz players were looking for something new. That turned out to be soul-jazz, an earthy blend of soul, R&B, blues and gospel added to a jazz style clearly derived from bebop.
This is where the exuberant “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!” came in. Cannonball knew where jazz was going, or at least his record company did. Even Miles would develop his own variation of the style. Soul-jazz expanded the jazz audience and led to hits like Adderley’s.
The cover of the album with the song on it announced that the music was recordedlLive at “The Club.” Even the liner notes said it was made at that Chicago night spot. But the music was recorded 2,000 miles away in Los Angeles. The producer invited friends to an L.A. studio where he created a simulated night club and served free drinks. You can hear exhortations and clapping from the crowd during the performance. Adderley was a good friend of the club owner in Chicago and wanted to boost his business.
“Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!” was written by the group’s keyboard player, Joe Zawinul. He would go on to became a major figure in the more rock-oriented jazz-fusion style, playing on Miles’ fusion records and co-founding the popular fusion band Weather Report.
The song begins with a short spoken prelude by Adderley that reflected the relationship of soul-jazz to church music as well as the black power movement associated with the style.
The Buckinghams’ version came just a few months after their previous hit, “Kind of a Drag,” and added lyrics. The Buckinghams were a Chicago band. If they ever stopped by to hear jazz at The Club I hope the band was really there.
Here’s a song from Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” with Adderley on alto sax. Miles was also moving from bop styles at this time, but to a calmer, hypnotic, sometimes exotic “modal” style. Soon he’d create h idiosyncratic brand of soul-jazz and jazz-fusion. Adderley is the sax player on the right. The other sax player is some guy named John Coltrane. The great Bill Evans on piano.
