Mercy Mercy Mercy
The other day, I posted a chemnitzer concertina version of a tune called Mercy Mercy Mercy, and mentioned that I thought there was a Cannonball Adderley recording of a tune by the same name. Here's Adderley's version of this tune which was written by Joe Zawinul:
Here's another fine version played live by the Birdland Big Band:
And one more... here's Curfew:
The writer of this song, the late Joe Zawinul played with Cannonball Adderley, and then went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, messing with "jazz fusion". He later co-founded Weather Report and the Zawinul Syndicate. According to Wikipedia, Zawinul won the "Best keyboardist" award 30 times from Down Beat's critics' poll.
2 comments:
This same tune was given lyrics (by whom??) and was a top ten hit for The Buckinghams, I think in 1967. YouTube has video.
I'm trying to find the history of the lyrics - Don't know if they were penned by Zawinul or someone else for the Buckinghams.
I was at Sweet Basil in NYC over 15 years ago, listening to the Nat Adderly Quintet. They did Mercy, Mercy, Mercy beautifully. At the break, I heard someone in the audience asking about lyrics for the tune but nobody remembered. The lyrics are posted and can be found as Buckingham lyrics. Hmmm...
I saw that video when I made this post but it didn't really turn my crank. I mean the melody is so strong it can handle the treatment, but I think the tune is better without dressing it up with lyrics.
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