Said the Gramophone

To Its Centre

Adderley claims that "Inside Straight" is where he's at philosophically. He asks "Know what I mean?" But who could? Perhaps a more suitable title would have been "When the Fear Stops... You're Dead!" (a work of genius later composed as the tag line for the William Forsythe film, Relentless 3).

Cannonball Adderley - "Inside Straight"

Know what I mean?

Though it at first appears to be a relatively standard (if particularly funky) Booker T and the MGs inspired soul-jazz, "Inside Straight", by its end, proves to be a surreal, frightening, and thoroughly fucked work. After the band runs through the theme once, Cannonball takes a solo that is a lesson in uniquely Southern dirtiness: his staccato is hot sticky fingers and his legato is lllllllllllubricated like... Oh my! And as Cannonball's playing becomes freer, the drummer rids the song of closed high-hat and rides the ride cymbal like a jockey rides a horse, or a mom rides her insolent adolescent son, or a mom rides an aspiring jockey (her son) for not riding his horse enough. The drummer rides the ride to the same extent that Magic Mountain is a ride. Then the drummer drops the ride, moves away from its indistinct clang, and returns to his eminently samplable funk. To take this as a return to home and to normalcy would be to ignore the monster that is simultaneously unleashed on all those in the live studio audience or listening at home - this monster, who now takes the lead, is some sort of half man-half half-brass horn; a bull in a china shop, huffing and chewing and slobbering and finally squealing like a pig. Frightening, I know. But what's more frightening is that this live audience of voyeuristic sociopaths only amplify their hollers and applause, loving every goddamn minute of the whole divine spectacle.

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Cupid: Miss Misery, meet Mr. Disgrace.

fin

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