I've long since given up attempting to find the logic in reissue labels like 20th Century Masterworks, the latest in a long line of anonymous yet generic imprints ransacking the back catalogue of jazz's good and great. While there is absolutely nothing to complain about in terms of musical quality

- just look at the names involved!

- quite why Adderley's Cannonball Takes Charge, perhaps his finest early outing, has been included as an afterthought (and one not even mentioned on the front cover) is beyond me. Surely such a significant recording deserves more than to be treated as an asterisk denoted ‘bonus album‘?

Anyway, the music: anyone who has heard the famous head-to-head with Coltrane (first issued on Mercury) will know it's indeed a masterpiece, taking what was, in essence, the Miles Davis Sextet of the day into a studio – sans leader – on its afternoon off and letting its two saxophonist's joust things out in friendly fashion. The highlights are too numerous to mention. Each hornman gets a ballad, there's a blistering account of ‘Limehouse Blues’, with Trane fully unfurling the sheets of sound, and in one of the tenorist's two compositions, ‘Grand Central’, he reveals the DNA of Tubby Hayes' theme ‘Second City Steamer’. In fact, listening back now, there's precious little to separate Cannonball from his more celebrated front-runner; both play the saxophone inside out on this record, going to prove that all the nay-saying critics who dubbed Adderley a light-weight were very far wide of the mark.

The ‘bonus’ (ahem!) is equally as brilliant, if not more so for the greater time it allows the altoist to speak his piece. ‘Barefoot Sunday Blues’ reduces things to the essence, there's some genuinely affecting balladry on ‘Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry’ and ‘I Remember You’ stakes a convincing claim on the Parker legacy. Throughout, Wynton Kelly attends with his usual grace. Both albums are essential listening.