Wes / Adderley, Cannonball Montgomery Poll Winners

Originally issued under Cannonball's name (but with both Wes Montgomery and Ray Brown mentioned on the cover), Cannonball Adderley and the Poll Winners (Riverside RLP9355) was one of countless albums that used awards garnered by the participating musicians as a promotional tool. One such group (the trio composed of Barney Kessel, Shelly Manne, and Ray Brown) was in fact called "The Poll Winners" and recorded various albums under that name. The polls in question were done by prominent jazz magazines such as Down Beat and Metronome, among others. There were critics' polls, which depending on the magazine, included such names as Leonard Feather, Ralph J. Gleason, Ira Gitler, etc; readers' polls, allowing the subscribers of the respective magazine to select the musicians they liked most; and finally musicians' polls, in which the jazzmen themselves chose the best among their peers. Every poll included various categories, one for each instrument of relevance (including jazz vocals). In order to justify the album's title, Orrin Keepnews wrote in the original liner notes that "after a gradual climb in previous years, Adderley suddenly spurted out in front among altoists and by now his mantelpiece, if he had one, would be piled with plaques from Down Beat, Metronome, Jet, Playboy, and so on". Keepnews also mentioned that Wes Montgomery [was] "voted a new star in the 1960 Down Beat Critics Poll and named most promising jazz instrumentalist of the year in a Billboard poll of jazz disc jockeys and A & R men, but he also soared to second place in the Down Beat readers' voting, and actually won top guitar honors in the Metronome readers' ballotting!" Of course, all of this publicity seems irrelevant now, considering that both leaders have long been consecrated as among the best jazz men ever. Apart from their wonderful chemistry here, Wes and Cannonball would only be recorded together on one other occasion, for one of the three sessions made for singer John Hendricks' album A Good Git-Together.