BLP 1564

Paul Chambers Quintet

Released - February 1958

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, May 19, 1957
Donald Byrd, trumpet #1-5; Clifford Jordan, tenor sax #1-5; Tommy Flanagan, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Elvin Jones, drums.

tk.3 Four Strings
tk.8 Minor Run-Down
tk.9 Beauteous
tk.12 What's New
tk.15 The Hand Of Love
tk.16 Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Minor Run-Down	Benny Golson	19/05/1957
The Hand of Love	Paul Chambers	19/05/1957
Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise	Oscar Hammerstein, Sigmund Rosberg	19/05/1957
Side Two
Four Strings	Benny Golson	19/05/1957
What's New?	Johnny Burke	19/05/1957
Beauteous	Paul Chambers	19/05/1957

Credits

Cover Photo:
Cover Design:	TOM HANNAN
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	ROBERT LEVIN

Liner Notes

The influx of revolutionary ideas into the jazz mainstream, since the death of Charlie Parker, has been rather static. No one man, since Bird’s passing, has suddenly emerged to prompt an entirely new school of jazz thought as wide spread and important as was his. But there have been a great many gifted young musicians with something to say who have based their method of expression on that of Bird’s (the label is “bop”), and are going on from there perhaps to someday achieve even greater heights.

Among them are the musicians heard on this record. Paul Chambers, unquestionably the finest bass player to hit the jazz scene in more than a decade, is the leader here, and has as his cohorts on assemblage of some of the brightest young talent in modern jazz.

Paul was born in Pittsburgh on April 22, 1935, and moved to Detroit at an early age after the death of his mother. He had his first musical experiences in school playing bass, baritone horn, and tuba, and worked his first gigs in the Detroit area with Kenny Burrell, Thad Jones, and Barry Harris. While attending Cass Tech, Paul studied with the bassist in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, receiving a solid foundation in the classical aspects of his instrument. He toured with Paul Quinichette before coming to New York where he has worked, mostly with Miles Davis. In 1956, his first full year in New York, Paul won New Star honors in the Down Beat Critics’ Poll and the Musician’s Musicians Poll in the Encyclopedia of Jazz Yearbook. He leads a sextet on BLP 1534 (Whims of Chambers), and has also recorded for Blue Note with Kenny Burrell (BLP 1523 & BLP 1543), Hank Mobley (BLP 1540), and Lee Morgan (BLP 1541).

Cliff Jordan, the bespectacled tenor saxophonist from Chicago, is one of the latest Blue Note “discoveries.” His punching, hard-toned tenor lies in sound and direction between John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, and for my money (and a good deal of it is spent on records like this one), Cliff and Johnny Griffin (an earlier Blue Note find, also from Chicago, BLP 1533 & BLP 1559) are the two most promising tenor saxophonists in jazz today. At this writing, Cliff had just completed a four week gig with the Max Roach Quintet and was about to switch places with Hank Mobley of Horace Silver’s group. He shared his first Blue Note LP (Blowing in from Chicago, BLP 1549) with still another excellent Chicago tenor, John Gilmore, and has a second one due out shortly (BLP 1565).

Donald Byrd’s driving, gritty trumpet has reached the point of “near greatness” predicted by many critics and fellow musicians when he first hit the New York scene several years ago. He is one of the most sought after (for club and record dates) of contemporary trumpet men and has worked, it seems, with everyone in town but the N.Y. Philharmonic. Joking aside, Don’s talent is certainly deserving of its ubiquitous exposure, and Blue Note has seen fit to record him with Horace Silver, BLP 1539, Hank Mobley, BLP 1540; Sonny Rollins, BLP 1542; Lou Donaldson, BLP 1545; Jimmy Smith, BLP 1547/BLP 1548; and Chambers on BLP 1534. Incidentally, Sonny Rollins, seriously considering the organization of a quintet of his own, has expressed his desire to have Byrd as the other horn. Quite a compliment.

Drummer Elvin Jones, brother of Hank and Thad, is the youngest of the Pontiac, Michigan “Jones Boys.” He was born on September 9, 1927 and, after playing in high school and Army bands, gigged in and around Detroit with brother Thad and Billy Mitchell. He played at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955 with Teddy Charles and Charlie Mingus, and moved to New York City in the Spring of 1956 working with the Bud Powell Trio. He lists as his favorite drummers Max Roach, Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, and Roy Haynes, and shows promise of someday (and it’s not too far off) becoming a "favorite" himself.

Tommy Flanagan’s soft, lyrical touch is a constant delight throughout this or any other album he happens to appear on. He is of the Bud Powell “single-line” or “one-handed” school of modern piano players; always tasteful and sensitive to the soloist he is complementing, and is himself on imaginative and poignant soloist. He’s recorded before for Blue Note with Thad Jones (BLP 1513 & BLP 1546) and Kenny Burrell (BLP 1523 & BLP 1543).

Side one is kicked off with Benny Golson’s “Minor Run-Down” which, along with “Four Strings,” was written by Benny especially for this date. Benny is the Philadelphia composer, arranger, and tenor saxophonist, currently with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, who seems to make a practice of writing extremely appealing originals. Benny contributed four charts to Lee Morgan's "Sextet" LP (BLP 1541, Slightly Hep, Where Am I, Whisper Not and Latin Hangover. Lee also recorded Benny's Stand By and Reggie of Chester on BLP 1538 and Hasaan's Dream, Domingo, I Remember Clifford, Mesabi Chant and Tip-Toeing on BLP 1557. On this one Paul solos first stating the sad, ominous melody with punctuating assists from the horns and is followed by a strong, vibrant Jordan who shows off the Coltrane influence in a most invigorating way. Byrd is slashing and gutty as he is throughout the session. Flanagan's bit is light and neat and leads into a cute four bar exchange between Paul's bass and Elvin's brushes.

Paul's The Hand has a Latin flavored intro and a familiar, pretty melody line. Paul. Tommy, Cliff, Don and Elvin flow engagingly in that order.

The standard, Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise, is played by Paul, Tommy and Elvin minus the horns. The piano and bass engage in an effective interplay and solo eloquently over Elvin's discreet brushwork.

Paul's bowed bass, in unison with the horns on the opening and closing portions of Golson's Four Strings, which begins side two, gives the impression that a guitar has suddenly been added to the group. The effect is quite arresting. Jordan and Byrd belt out a pair of characteristically hard, driving solos followed by a groovy Flanagan and a short workout by Jones.

The lovely, What's New, is taken at a surprising medium rather than slow, ballad tempo. Everyone but Jones gets a turn to come up front and blow. But Elvin gets his chance on Beauteous, an exuberant, rocking theme by Chambers, that J.R. Monterose recorded before on BLP 1536 as each member of the group makes a significant statement before the tune and the session ends.

And so contained herein is a meaningful sampling of the talents of six (I am including Benny Golson) young musicians who represent an extension of the bop tradition and are among its most articulate and swinging exponents.

-ROBERT LEVIN

Cover Design by TOM HANNAN
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT QUINTET

This album with the most straightforward of titles comes from a period when more and more bassists found their names on the front cover, a golden age for the instrument's major voices to present themselves as studio leaders that has never been surpassed. 1957 was the year that Charles Mingus's presence truly began to be felt via such collections as The Clown and East Coasting (the initially withheld Tijuana Moods is also a '57 vintage), the year that Oscar Pettiford waxed a second volume where he for and led a big band, the point at which Curtis Counce presented his talented, Angeles-based quintet. Not all of the great bassists embraced the opportunities provided by the long-playing album and the more vivid audio presence that talented engineers such as Rudy Van Gelder made available; some stepped out front only occasionally (Ray Brown), rarely (Milt Hinton), or not at all (George Duvivier and, at least until the next century, Percy Heath). From the instrument's young tyros who accepted the challenge, however — like Red Mitchell, Doug Watkins, and Paul Chambers — the opportunity was there.

Chambers never built a working career as a bandleader, but the boldness of his solo and support work in the Miles Davis Quintet that he joined in the latter half of 1955 was immediately evident, and in his prime years Chambers drew the attention of independent jazz labels on coasts and the midwest. His tenure at Blue Note, which produced three LPs in less than ten months, followed a Jazz West date taped when the Davis band was on its first West Coast tour (Chambers' Music) and a blowing session cut for Transition during the unit's subsequent swing through Boston. On those earlier occasions, as well as his Blue Note debut Whims of Chambers in '56, the presence of Davis band mates John Coltrane and Philly Joe Jones was critical. The supporting cast here is new save for Donald Byrd (heard on Whims), and presented a clear opportunity for Chambers to display his personality in the one-shot blowing format that has become emblematic of the era.

If his working home with Davis was central to Chambers's profile, so was his geographic point of musical origin in the thriving Detroit scene. Motor City contemporaries figured prominently on several Chambers sessions; Curtis Fuller and Pepper Adams on the Transition sextet session, Byrd and Kenny Burrell on Whims, and (two months after this date) Burrell and Hank Jones on Bass on Top. Here, the personnel are heavily tilted toward Detroit, The ringer, and the only other Blue Note artist at the time, was Chicagoan Clifford Jordan, and he fits right in. Robert Levin hears Coltrane's stamp in Jordan's "Minor Run Down" solo, though a stronger case can be made for a tenor largely forgotten in 1957 (though not by Coltrane and other saxophonists), Dexter Gordon.

Writing never became a significant part of Chambers's profile, though he did contribute worthy material to most of his sessions. Both of his originals here contrast Latin and straight-ahead sections, with "Beauteous" reversing the layout of "The Hand of Love." Neither tune has enjoyed much of a subsequent life — the J.R. Monterose version of the former that Levin mentions was taped a year earlier, while "Hand" was revived on a 1999 album by bassist Rodney Whitaker.

Instead of what had become his usual approach of relying on sidemen to fill out the program, Chambers turned here to Benny Golson, whose writing career had been launched When Davis and then the bassist (on Jazz West) waxed "Stablemates." Golson's two titles here are lesser-known efforts from his massive canon, with "Minor Run Down" akin rhythmically if not structurally to his better-known "Minor Vamp," and "Four Strings" designed to provide a feature for the leader's bowed work, Both titles were taped at the start of the session, with "Four Strings" attempted first and heard in the date's only alternate take. The earlier master take has better ensemble and solo intonation, a sign of the difficulty Chambers and many other leading jazz bassists of the period had in keeping their bowed work in tune.

The date's two standards feature chord structures that made them among the period's most popular vehicles for improvisation, "Softly As in a Morning Sunrise," given an unfortunately terse reading here, was also recorded by Chambers in trio settings with Toshiko Akiyoshi and Sonny Clark, and was a feature for the 1960 Miles Davis rhythm section during its European tour, "What's New?" (by another bassist, Bob Haggart) had been taped by Chambers and Flanagan on a J.J. Johnson date three weeks earlier, and would be revisited by the leader later in '57 on a Jackie McLean session as well as on the celebrated 1965 conclave of Wes Montgomery, Wynton Kelly, Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2008