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Limehouse Blues
Cannonball Adderley Lyrics

And those weird China blues
Never go away
Sad, mad blues
For all the while they seem to say

Oh, Limehouse kid
Oh, oh, Limehouse kid
Goin' the way
That the rest of them did
Poor broken blossom

And nobody's child
Haunting and taunting
You're just kind of wild

Oh, Limehouse blues
I've the real Limehouse blues
Can't seem to shake off
Those real China blues
Rings on your fingers
And tears for your crown
That is the story
Of old Chinatown

Rings on your fingers
And tears for your crown
That is the story
Of old Chinatown

Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: THOMAS 'FATS' WALLER

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

To comment on specific lyrics, highlight them

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Comments from YouTube:

Sirvalorsax

11y↑38

Cannonball is just the flat out sickest articulation master EVER!!!!! DAMN!!!!!! :0

stevie defraz

15w↑1

Agreed. The absolute king.

Zach Limb

1y↑1

@Nate Haupt A man of culture

Zach Limb

1y↑1

LMAO, I looked this song up because I just saw your video on articulation. Good stuff!

Nate Haupt

1y↑2

Sirvalorsax came here after watching your video.

SchwartzMusic

9y↑21

Taking lessons with a local professional saxophonist, she wants me to transcribe as much of the cannonball solo as I can in two weeks. Shoot meeee. o.O

John Greenberg

12w

lol

TRANSC3ND3NC3

2y↑1

@'thwish nice

'thwish

2y↑2

hows it comin

伍信翰

9y↑12

Actually here Coltrane used his special technique we called "COLTRANE CHANGE."

bills48321

6w↑1

I wondered if that was what he was doing. It sounds great.

Steven Alexander

6y↑36

Canonball was an Articulation KING.

Arr Jee

3y↑2

Steven Alexander
Yeah and he had this liquidy fluid feel connecting those notes. As if it was slurred but not really, becuz he was punchin’ them out. Amazing!
Kenny Garrett hits me that way too. Interestingly, Cannonball, Coltrane and Kenny have an R&B or gospel background. Donald Blackman and Marcus Miller use to say, “It’s all about the funk”!

asellape92

5y↑1

What's about Bird and Sonny Stitt?

Jesse B

7y↑26

This is complete insanity. Holy shit.

Miles Napier Music

10y↑7

He's using third relations in a tune that doesn't even have those changes!!! I've never heard that done before but for pre Giant Steps Trane it's remarkably dissonant.

2300 skidoo

3y↑22

Cannonball Adderley - alto saxophone
John Coltrane - tenor saxophone
Wynton Kelly - piano
Paul Chambers - bass
Jimmy Cobb - drums

Who needs Miles?

Athos Garcia

31w

jaja, who needs miles

Miles Davis

4y↑7

It's not too often i add a classic jazz tune to my workout playlist. This is one of them next to giant steps and ascension.

Gerhard Bitter

24w↑2

Stylistically, this can be called “bob or post-bob”, but also as “free jazz”. Cannonball and John improvise totally freely over a musical form. The Greek philosopher Plato said 3,000 years ago: Art is freedom in form.
This interpretation and the spontaneous conversations between Adderley and Coltrane about the Limehouse Blues are still unsurpassed today (approx. 60 years later) and guarantee jazz a long survival.

StanleyKewbeb1

9y↑12

It's like the collision of the two galaxies of bop and post-bop.

StanleyKewbeb1

5y↑20

This was Miles Davis's band at the time. He said, Why don't you guys make a record. And the first track on the album is like, post-Bop being born out of Bop, at that moment in the late fifties. You've got Cannonball tearing it up like Son of Bird, then Coltrane steps in and starts playing what McLaughlin and Shorter and those cats will pick up in the 60's. THEN they start trading breaks.

Joshua Brunia

1y↑2

The way John Coltrane could play a saxophone is just remarkable

C Davis

9y↑3

This just blows my mind...enough said

alnot01

6y↑6

I discovered this recording as a vinyl LP more than 40 years ago. I was astounded; I became a confirmed Cannonball Adderley fan for life.

tunefultony johnson

5y↑5

I like the way Adderley and Coltrane trade fast phases before wrapping the whole thing up together... This is class musicianship at its finest.. Also drummer Jimmy Cobb acquits himself pretty well, to keep up with these far-out dudes...

LLCerulianLL

3y↑3

The bpm is around 330

Peter B.

9y↑2

Love the sound with a sax and a piano playing with drummer keeping time like that.Jazz at its finest.

Tommaso Starace Music

22w↑1

My all time favourite saxophonist!
His tone is so expressive, full and rich at the bottom of the register and at the top ( something not easy on alto sax!). Amazing sense of time, swing, phenomenal articulation, and an infinite musical box of original ideas. Long live Cannonball!!

C Davis

9y↑8

I have been playing jazz for 25 yrs+ - Let me just say, I cannot play jazz period. This is in another dimention.

Matouš Pullo

That means you can likely play yo ass off.

hootlezap

Dr. Demento, indeed!

tunefultony johnson

Dimension?

Software Multistore

10y↑1

Cannonball and Dr. Coltrane, THE BOSSES of improvisation!!!

Jesse Russell

13w

This is one of the best versions of lime has blues I have ever heard it is fantastic hearing these great saxophone players play very fast I absolutely love it the faster the saxophone players and organizations can play the better this is really great thank you for putting this on YouTube.

Jackson.

2y↑1

Of course this is my audition piece

studbagl

10y↑2

@bopguity This is the best possible reason why you should play jazz! =D

Aaron McCoy

11y↑1

coltrane is so damn slippery

Mathieu Morin

Definitely one of the best versions

odrian ospina

9y↑1

Fucking great song !! my total respect !

Terry

10y↑1

Holy smokes...wow, wow, wow. Thanks for the put.

Wheelly

4y↑1

So much energy in it

Rob Scheps

14w

Totally killin'

Alfredo Cristovam de Souza

wonderful music.

SchwartzMusic

9y↑6

Actually, Giant Steps was born from a practice exercise that Coltrane liked to play.

ztrombly11

5y↑3

he actually got the idea from the bridge from have you met miss Jones , which was written many years before

weebie2004

9y↑3

Transcribing single lines is just a question of time. What kills me is transcribing chord voicings. What if you just don't hear a note? How do you know it's wrong? Gaaaaa

Neil H

36w

@ExecutionSommaire Even pros like Ethan Iverson will admit that if the piano is buried in the mix or the recording fidelity isn't great, guesswork is sometimes involved for transcribing piano chords.

ExecutionSommaire

Struggling as hell with that too. It's okay for trio things such as Bill Evans records where the piano clearly stands out from the mix. But transcribing the piano comping on a sax solo... You gotta have super ears I guess (I know some lucky folks who have this ability, would give a lot to have it myself)

Matouš Pullo

2y↑2

This is where I disagree with Gladwell. 10000 hours doesn’t necessarily mean you’d arrive where Cannonball and Trane did, even if that’s where you’re trying to get to. Damnnnnn.

Neil H

36w↑1

I think creative genius is outside the scope of the 10,000 hour theory. Creativity may be 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration, but that 1% separates the Coltranes from the musicians who were mere mortals. At the margins, 1% can be huge.

BassasaurusRex

Gladwell never said that that once you crossed the virtuoso threshold that you are equally as talented as any other person considered a virtuoso though. The 10,000 hrs theory has been pretty well demonstrated.
Take this recording as an example. Paul Chambers is a virtuoso jazz bassist. I don’t think you’d get a ton of arguments if you said Mingus was a better one though. Still, both virtuosi.

jazz1bro

10y↑3

When Jazz was real Jazz and you knew who you were listening too!

Fernando Villegas

5y↑3

This is more beatiful and beautiful and complex than tensor calculus

anitadavideduo

9y↑1

2 Giants!

Benaiah Sombke

6y↑7

COLTRANE CHANGES!!

viorel-adrian Banu

18w

Please God send they back.

Aaron McCoy

11y

@bopguity you should try, theres a whole world in there to enjoy

SpaceValkyrie

10y↑2

1:44 excuse me sir you may have just blown my fucking mind!!! 0_0

Thebutcherman

2y↑8

0:56 hot

Chantell Patrick

51w

YES

harleywhitesr

This is the last word.

jibsmokestack1

10y↑2

@lenardsimpson Wynton Kelly!

totti fruti

3y↑5

Cannonball killed Coltrane

Ingwë Vanyarin

Totally agree. Swings way harder. Better articulation. More rhythmically interesting. Trane does have a damn cool tone though.

dgs1933

2y↑2

Hardly.

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