Billboard : 10/06/56
Score of 74

The hard-swinging alto man, while in the “land of hi-fi” also is in the land of confining arrangements, this time some of Ernie Wilkins‘ less interesting scores. Consequently, the jazz stays on the ground. Adderley‘s Charlie Parkerish tone is not ideally suited to the slow ballads, such as Little Girl Blue. “Cannonball” has made better albums.

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Providence Journal
Philip C. Gunion : 10/21/1956

Another sax player, this time on alto, is Julian (Cannonball) Adderley, whose new EmArcy album is called In The Land of Hi-Fi. He is a modernist all the time; however, in this set he is much more lyrical than I have heard him before.

Adderley seems to be cutting away the cord which once bound him so completely to Charlie Parker and is beating up good ideas of his own. The talented Ernie Wilkins conducted and arranged the album, which may account for the Basie influence in some spots, with wonderful section work – if you can count two men as a section. Excellent, swinging modern jazz.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 11/20/1956
Young Alto Sax Star Making Debut Here

Tonight at the Blackhawk, a young alto saxophone player from Tampa, FL named Julian (Cannonball) Adderley, will make his debut in this area.

Adderley, a musician of tremendous vitality with a riotous, driving, swinging style of playing, is a disciple of the late Charlie Parker. He’s a young man (he was born in 1928) and he has only been on the jazz scene for a short time, but he has already caused quite a stir.

Cannonball got his nickname because of his large appetite. High school friends nicknamed him Cannibal originally, but this was quickly corrupted to Cannonball. A versatile musician, Adderley plays the tenor, flute and trumpet in addition to the alto, but he has specialized on the latter instrument in recent years. His brother, Nat, who plays in the group with him, is a cornetist.

The Adderleys are sons of a jazz cornetist who played in the Florida area for many years. Cannonball started his first band while in high school and continued with music when he was in the service. Early last year he went to New York with his brother to try and make a name in jazz circles.

The usual difficulty of the unknown musician plagued him until one night when San Francisco tenor saxophonist Jerome Richardson was late for an engagement at the Club Bohemia in Greenwich Village in New York, Cannonball had a chance to substitute for him. His performance that night firmly established him as one of the new stars on the alto saxophone and his subsequent recordings for EmArcy have underlined the point. His latest, Julian Adderley in Hi-Fi, features Cannonball in a program of numbers arranged and composed by Ernie Wilkins. With Adderley’s group this week will be the Calvin Jackson Quartet.

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San Francisco Examiner
C.H. Garrigues : 11/18/1956

In an era abounding in great alto men, one cannot consider Adderley particularly outstanding. This is pleasant enough modern jazz but no more. San Francisco’s fine tenor man, Jerome Richardson, is heard on tenor and flute.

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Wichita Falls Times
Bob Herdien : 10/14/1956

Alto sax at its best is typified by “Cannonball” Adderley‘s latest In The Land of Hi-Fi on a mixed set of standards and originals.

You’ll like Just Norman, a boppish original that has fine solo work by Nat Adderley on cornet and “Specs” Wright on drums. Jimmy Cleveland and Ernie Royal are also working on these sides, and provide some interesting figures to go with the “Cannonball.” This is lively swing, unpretentious jazz.

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Down Beat : 11/14/1956
Nat Hentoff : 3.5 stars

Adderley In the Land of Hi-Fi has in his expedition his brother Nat on cornet, trombonists Jimmy Cleveland and Bobby Byrne, Ernie Royal, Jerome Richardson on tenor and flute, baritone saxist Danny Bank, Charlie (Specs) Wright, drums, Keter Betts, bass, Junior Mance, piano.

The rhythm section is sturdy and full-swinging. Pianist’s Mance’s too-brief, direct solos are earthily headshaking. Only distinguished individualized soloist on the entire date is Cleveland (and when is EmArcy going to give him a second album of his own?). Nat and Cannonball (who has most of the solo space) are generally good but have yet to find fully their own voices. Both, however, are worthy because of their vitality, ungimmicked blues-driven honesty, and considerable rhythmic depth. Ernie Wilkins, a master at clothing this kind of vitality without stifling it (witness his Basie scores) has provided clean, loose, building arrangements that are, for the most part, models of their unpretentious kind.

The various originals (by Wilkins, the Adderley brothers, Mance, Marcel Daniels, Thomas Turrentine, Wright and Ray Bryant) are idiomatically pleasurable though none but possibly Care is apt to endure. The one mistake – and Cannonball objected to it – was the inclusion of the rather banal Broadway at Basin Street which has no business here, no musical business anyway. But Cannonball salvages something out of it. In Ray Bryant’s promising I Don’t Care, there is, incidentally, a vigorous, partly growling flute solo by Richardson.

In summary, not a remarkable set but a solid one that has enough kicks to warrant the price.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

Julian “Cannonball” Adderley fired his first shot, a salvo heard throughout the entire world of jazz, when his initial album (MG 36043) was released less than a year ago. Soon after, he was featured in a quintet session under the leadership of his brother, Nat, on the Wing label; more recently, “Cannonball” was featured with a string ensemble, arranged and conducted by Richard Hayman, in an impressive set of performances on standard tunes, (MG 36063). These albums, further implemented by guest appearances with Sarah Vaughan and other visitors to the Land of Hi Fi, succeeded in their objected of establishing “Cannonball” as a major new jazz talent.

With the present excursion of the Adderley brothers and their cohorts to the Land of Hi Fi, “Cannonball” returns approximately to the same format and setting featured on his first album. Ernie Wilkins served as conductor and arranger. Like Quincy Jones, who was the musical director on the first Adderley session, Ernie recently returned from a tour of the Middle East, during which he played in the all-star band sponsored by the State Department and led by Dizzy Gillespie. On returning home, he put down the saxophone, picked up the pen and went promptly to work on this album, recorded in June, 1956 with the following participants: Nat Adderley, cornet; Ernie Royal, trumpet; “Cannonball” Adderley, alto sax; Jerome Richardson, tenor sax and flute; Danny Bank, baritone sax; Jimmy Cleveland and Bobby Byrne, trombones; Junior Mance, piano; Charlie “Specs” Wright, drums; Keter Betts, bass.

Most of the tunes heard on these sides had never been recorded before. Dog My Cats is an Ernie Wilkins original taken at a fast clip, starting with some fine Mance piano work. I’m Glad There is You is a sensitive Wilkins treatment of the standard tune, showing “Cannonball” in his best ballad mood.

Blues from Bohemia, despite its title, is actually built on a thirty-two bar construction, with some excellent work by Nat Adderley, whose tone and style occasionally recall Clark Terry, and by “Cannonball”, who named this tune for the Greenwich Village night club where New Yorkers first saw, heard and raved about him in the summer of 1955.

Junior’s Theme, dreamed up, of course, by Mr. Mance, is a slightly old-timey theme with a pleasant beat and excellent work by Mance and both Adderleys. [I}Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea[/I] is a Harold Arlen song of 1931, in which Jimmy Cleveland’s chorus is startling in its technique and dazzling in style, a match for the brilliant fluency of “Cannonball” himself, some of whose finest alto work is heard here.

Casa de Marcel, a tune written by a young writer named Marcel Daniels from Chicago, is an attractive medium-tempo item. Little Girl Blue, except for a piano interlude, is “Cannonball” all the way. T’s Tune, a brain child of one Thomas Turrentine, a trumpet player from Pittsburgh who once worked around the Middle West along with Ernie Wilkins in the George Hudson orchestra. It’s a slow, funky blues with more wonderful work by Mance and “Cannonball.”

Broadway at Basin Street, starting with an alto cadenza, goes into fast minor-key ad libbing by “Cannonball” before the time is cut in half for some unison ensemble work. This tune supposedly is the Basin Street club’s answer to Lullaby of Birdland (New York’s Basin Street, we need hardly add, is not a street at all, but a bistro located on 51st Street just off Broadway. “Cannonball’s” group has played there several times in recent months.

Just Norman, a boppish original, has fine work by Nat and Julian, as well as some solo flashes by Specs, who composed it. The meaning of the title is wrapped in a mystery; Specs was out of town as these notes went to press, so we were unable to confirm the rumor that it was dedicated to Norman Vincent Peale. The set closes with I Don’t Care, a minor-key original by Ray Bryant, a young Philadelphia pianist. In addition to “Cannonball’s” remarkable work here, there is some fine flute by Jerome Richardson, in both solo and ensemble capacity. Jerome is one of the few men who can make a flute growl convincingly; those who remember the late, great Esy Morales will know what we mean.

To sum up, this is a lively, swinging session of unpretentious modern jazz that will serve further to consolidate “Cannonball’s” reputation as one of the big guns in contemporary music.