The Adderley Brothers - Tallahassee's Jazz Giants

Local Insights
Written By TG
 

The Adderley Brothers, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley and Nathaniel “Nat” Adderley, were Jazz legends. They grew up in Tallahassee and often came back for concerts and to visit family. Several places in Tallahassee are named after the two local sons including:

  • The Julian “Cannonball” and Nat Adderley Music Institute at Florida A&M University

  • A section of street that connects to Suwanee Street named Adderley Way, it is located behind the Amphitheater in Cascades Park

  • The Adderley Amphitheater in Cascades Park

Nat Adderly and Cannonball Adderley at a concert at FAMU in the 1970s

source (Florida Memory)


 

In the 1940s, Dr. Julian Sr. and Jessie “Sugar” Adderley moved from Tampa to Tallahassee to teach at FAMU. They brought their two sons, Julian Jr. and Nathaniel. Both boys went to high school in Tallahassee before joining FAMU as students.


Julian and Nat both played musical instruments, having been taught by their father. Julian played the saxophone while Nat played the cornet. By fourteen, Julian began playing in venues around the Frenchtown neighborhood like The Red Bird Cafe and El Dorado (from the Chitlin’ Circuit). He knew and played music with Ray Charles (another local Frenchtown resident) before either became famous. Julian Jr. was known by the nickname “Cannibal” due to his love of food while Nathaniel went by “Nat.”



Julian Jr. studied band education while Nat majored in sociology. Their Uncle was the band director for FAMU’s famed marching band, the Marching 100, from 1910 to 1918. It’s fitting that both brothers continued the family tradition by joining the Marching 100. After graduating, the brothers were drafted into the US Army where they both performed in the 36th Army Dance Band. Later, Julian Jr. became the band director at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale.

In 1955, Nat asked his brother to join him in New York City for the Jazz scene. One night they ended up at Cafe Bohemia in Greenwich Village to see a band headed by bassist Oscar Pettiford. That night, the brothers took their musical instruments with them, which was lucky as Pettiford was without a saxophonist. Julian Jr. offered to play and wowed the band and crowd alike. Nat later joined his brother to play that night. The crowd misheard Julian Jr.’s nickname as “Cannonball” and he was rechristened that night. News spread around the city about these two brothers and their legendary performance. Both brothers were invited to play professionally with several jazz artists.

 
 

Cannonball Adderley Quintet playing sell-out concert at FAMU in Tallahassee in 1969

Source (Florida Memory)

Cannonball would perform in bands with John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Sarah Vaughn. He also performed on the NBC’s Tonight Show in July 1956. Nat played with Woody Hermand and J.J. Johnson.


In September 1959, Cannonball and Nat reunited and formed the ‘Cannonball Adderley Quintet.’ They played at the San Francisco Jazz Workshop in October that same year. The Quintet’s hit album and song was performed in 1967, titled “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”


Both brothers often returned to Tallahassee to play concerts at FAMU.


The Adderley Brothers are considered Jazz heavyweights, creating a fusion sound that has its own subgenre known as “soul-jazz.” This sound became a staple for the decades of the 1960s and the 1970s.


Cannonball’s saxophone is now a part of the Smithsonian’s Collections and can be found at the National Museum of American History.


Cannonball Adderley and Nat Adderley are buried at Southside Cemetery in Tallahassee.




 
 

Additional Information:

Nat Adderley interview with The Tampa Bay Times, “Brother of Invention” by Tony Green. Published April 17, 1994

The University of Idaho archives have Leonard Feather’s (jazz critic) interviews with several jazz musicians. His “blindfold test” with both Cannonball and Nat is a 24-minute interview with a transcript included.

NPR’s Fresh Air has a seven-minute segment and article about two books, The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock and Roll by Preston Lauterbach and Fever: Little Willie John, A Fast Life, Mysterious Death and the Birth of Soul by Susan Whitall. Lauterbach’s book is on the entrepreneurs who ran the bars and the ones who booked acts during this time. Whitall’s book is about one of the last stars of the Chitlin’ Circuit.

Atlas Obscura’s “Inside the ‘Chitlin Circuit,’ a Jim Crow-Era Safe Space for Black Performers”


Information about Cannonball’s saxophone that is now at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History can be found in an article written by Dr. T. Gonzalvez titled “The History Behind Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley’s Saxophone.” This details the provenance of the piece as well.


Sammy Davis Jr. ‘playing’ the solo in A Man Called Adam (1966), The actual performance was performed by Nat Adderley Jr before being dubbed by Davis.

 

Citations:

TG
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