When alto saxophonist Julian Cannonball Adderley, a high school band director from Florida, passed through New York with brother Nat during a school break, he found more excitement than he was counting on. After Julian offered to sit in for a late reedman, the session's leader, bassist Oscar Pettiford confronted him with the challenging changes of I'll Remember April, at a breakneck tempo designed to humiliate the young upstart. Instead, Adderley responded with a solo that became the talk of the town; within days, his recording career had begun, and within a year he was able to give up his teaching job to front a full-time band. Adderley gave up his own band in 1957 when he had the opportunity to become a sideman in Miles Davis' epic ensemble with John Coltrane, resulting in some of the greatest jazz recordings of all time (including MILESTONES and KIND OF BLUE). Davis returned the favor in March of 1958, appearing as a sideman on Adderley's all-star quintet date for Blue Note, and the resulting session is indeed SOMETHIN' ELSE. Both horn players are at their peak of lyrical invention, crafting gorgeous, flowing blues lines on the title tune and One For Daddy-O, as the Hank Jones/Sam Jones/Art Blakey rhythm team creates a taut, focused groove (pianist Hank Jones' sly, intuitive orchestrations are studies of harmonic understatement). Adderley's lush, romantic improvisation on Dancing In The Dark is worthy of Charlie Parker or Johnny Hodges, while the band refurbishes Autumn Leaves and Love For Sale into personal cliche-free swingers. And Alison's Uncle puts a boppish coda on SOMETHIN' ELSE, one of the most gloriously laid-back blowing sessions of the hard bop era.