S.O.D. "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" by Cannonball Adderley

7/11/2016     Written by multi instrumentalist Joe Zawinul especially for Cannonball Adderley and released in 1966 under the soul jazz genre.  So yes it is an instrumental. In B-flat major, it is devised of notes from the major pentatonic scale of the first degree with the chord progression of dominant – seventh chords on the first, fourth and 5th degrees.  There are two movements in the composition with the 2nd alternating a tonic chord and a second-inversion subdominant chord, creating a parallel to the I-IV-V progression.  

     Otherwise, many other artists covered the song including Zawinul, The Buckinghams, and Buddy Rich.  Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley passed on to Jazz Heaven in 1975 at the age of 46.  He was a saxophonist and music teacher.  When he lived in Tallahassee Florida in his 20s, he would get together for a jam session now and again with Ray Charles.  Read on about this man, you will enjoy it.