The Cannonball Adderley Sextet is comprised of musicians Cannonball Adderley, Nat Adderley, Yusef Lateef, Joe Zawinul, Sam Jones, and Louis Hayes.
Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928 – August 8, 1975) was a jazz alto saxophonist of the hard-bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Originally from Tampa, Florida, he moved to New York in the mid 1950s. His nickname derived originally from "cannibal," an honorific title imposed on him by high school colleagues as a tribute to his vast eating capacity. He was the brother of jazz cornetist Nat Adderley.
The Cannonball Adderley Sextet recorded a live album titled "The Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York" at the Village Vanguard, released on the Riverside label. The Allmusic review by Richard S. Ginell awarded the album 4 stars and states "This was the recording debut of the Adderley Sextet, with Cannonball waxing eloquently and swingingly on alto, brother Nat charging ahead on cornet, and the versatile Yusef Lateef (who had joined the band only three weeks earlier) adding a bit of an edge on tenor, flute, and unusually for a jazz wind player, oboe on the odd, dirge-like "Syn-Anthesia." There is plenty of talk from Cannonball as well... This group would be Zawinul's springboard to prominence in the jazz world — and already his compulsively funky mastery of bop and the blues has fused tightly with the Sam Jones/Louis Hayes rhythm section". When reissued in 2008 All About Jazz called the album "perhaps the single most indispensable recording by the Adderley Brothers."
