Julian “Cannonball” Adderley was already a highly successful jazz leader by September 1960. The previous year he had been a member of the brilliant Miles Davis Sextet, which also included John Coltrane (with whom Cannonball had recorded a wonderful quintet album Bin Chicago during February of that same year).

With Miles, the two saxophonists recorded the Bincomparable masterpiece Kind of Blue Bon March 2 & April 22, 1959. The Cannonball Adderley BQuintet at the Lighthouse has no connection to either Miles or Coltrane, as it was recorded by Cannonball’s own working band of that period. The quintet included Cannonball’s brother Nat Adderley on cornet, Band pianist Victor Feldman.

At the Lighthouse was Cannonball’s second “live” album –recorded at a club in front of an audience but with professional equipment with the intention of producing an album, as opposed to private or radio broadcast live recordings. Cannonball’s first highly successful live effort was The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco, which marked Adderley and Bobby Timmons’ first collaborative recording. Despite its title, the 1959 Cannonball-Coltrane collaboration The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago was a studio album.