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Cornetist and occasional trumpeter Nat Adderley, the younger brother of alto and soprano saxophone giant Cannonball Adderley, clearly suffered little sibling rivalry as a result of playing in the looming shadow of his more celebrated kin. He continued to lead a very successful quintet or sextet under his own name after Cannonball's mid-1975 death. Born in Tampa, Fla., on Nov. 25, 1931, Adderley worked with Lionel Hampton's band in the 1954-'55 period, then with his brother from 1955 to 1957, with Woody Herman in 1959 and, finally, with Cannonball in a very popular quintet from 1959 to 1975. As a brass stylist, Nat is most often compared with Miles Davis, although there also are elements of Clark Terry and Dizzy Gillespie in his mostly mellow sound. He's composed the widely known "Jive Samba" and "Work Song," among others, and has recorded for numerous labels in the years since his brother's death. One of the best of those recordings is the 1990 Enja effort The Old Country. He has been mostly inactive in recent years since the amputation of a leg in mid-1997 as the result of diabetes complications. —Will Smith |