Whims Of Chambers

Just look at the personnel here and know that this side swings from the first to the last note.Super hip compositions from Trane and Donald Byrd, with a nice little ballad thing and a hip bass melody blues from PC. Philly Joe's intro to Omicron will keep drummers up at night for centuries. I love Donald Byrd on minor tunes and he doesn't disappoint me here. Trane lays out for two measures in one of the tunes as though he is thinking about what to play next. That pause in itself is a rare enough occurrence. When he comes back in he lays down what he had been contemplating and we find it was worth the wait. I dig the silence that preceded it as much as the phrase itself, just because it so rare.Horace and Kenny do a great job of staying out of each other's way and all pianists and guitarists should be made to listen to how they do so. Far too often the two gang up on the soloist and bury him/her with accompaniment.My personal favorite on the record is Omicron, a line based on the changes to Dizzy's "Woody'n You". Trane only plays one chorus! It is a very nice, concise chorus, but i have been listening to this record for 25 years wishing he had taken at least two more on these deceptively challenging changes.Great music.

Well recorded and performed

CD arrived promptly and was not damaged, but the first track on the album skips so much that it isn't able to be listened to. All the other tracks are fine.

I bought this because several tunes are transcribed in the Coltrane Omnibook. I'm a guitarist, so the presence of Kenny Burrell on the session is a plus. None of the tunes on this date have become part of the standard repertoire, and when you hear them you will understand why.

It was bad enough that none of the tracks from a recent iTunes download was accurately labeled (I thought Apple had lowered their prices, but I was paying $1.29 per track--and for the wrong tracks at that!) But as of this moment the sample tracks Amazon provides for "Whims of Chambers" have nothing to do with Paul, with the genre, or even with quality rock music (which is what they appear to represent). The rock-star vocalist keeps singing "They're singing the same songs." Boy, does he have that right. But again I'll try to set Amazon straight and hope for the better.Otherwise, this session is one of the staples in the Blue Note stable, featuring the player whose only rival at this time may not have been Mingus or even Pettiford but Scottie LaFaro (who was making records for Contemporary, before his meeting up with Bill), Ray Brown (admittedly, a more muscular sound than Paul's), Curtis Counce (ignored because of his absence on the East Coast scene), and Paul's classmate and relative, also from Detroit, Doug Watkins. It's indeed sobering to consider the brevity of the lives of LaFaro, Watkins, Counce, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Chambers. But while they were here, they built the solid foundations upon which some of the period's most memorable recordings were based. And unlike their successors, beginning in the '60s and extending into the '70s and beyond, they suffered neither from illusions that the bass is primarily a solo rather than a supportive instrument nor from the over-amplified bass frequencies of engineers compensating for hearing loss. All of the aforementioned players are a joy to listen to as much for their walking lines as for their melodic solo work, and as one reviewer has pointed out, Paul Chambers and his contemporaries are never "in your face." They give the listener credit, providing for a musical experience that is free, open, and shared--among the musicians, but equally with the listener. It's players like Paul and Watkins who led a Pastor-friend to confide in me that, rather than be a clergyman, he would have preferred to "serve" as the quintessential supportive bass man, making the entire journey and missing nary a step. They also serve who stand and wait.Lest the foregoing discourage listeners drawn to this date for, above all, the virtuosity of Chambers, rest assured that it's not lost. Three of the compositions are Paul's, he has solos on virtually all of the tunes, and on one, the mis-titled "Tale of the Fingers," the towering bassist tells some mighty tall tales with his bow (to my ears he's not merely the first but the best when it comes to blowing bass solos out of the Bird playbook with a bow (give the pre-Bird honor to Slam Stewart).

~ Paul Chambers was one of the most in-demand, highly respected musicians of his time. His recording career as leader and sidemen for many of the elite jazz artists of the ear only spanned 14 years before he died of tuberculosis in 1969, but fortunately he was recorded often. He was a master of bowed and pizzicato playing on the acoustic bass, with excellent timing and intonation. When Paul got the chance to record as leader he liked to include fellow Detroit artists such as Donald Byrd and Kenny Burrell.~ 'Whims of Chambers' was Paul's first session as leader for the Blue Note label. Recorded on 21 September 1956, six months after his debut as a leader for the Jazz West label, Paul is accompanied by an all-star ensemble of tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, trumpeter Donald Byrd, guitarist Kenny Burrell, pianist Horace Silver, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. While Coltrane and Jones are holdovers from Paul's Jazz West album, the addition of Byrd and Burrell give this album a different flavour than Paul's debut album. This session is more aggressive and edgy than the earlier session, in part due to Byrd's style but also because Coltrane had progressed considerably in the six months between dates. Even Kenny Burrell is slightly more aggressive in style and tone than his other recordings of this ear.~ All of the players get their chances in the spotlight. Chambers is spectacular in both bowed and pizzicato solos, especially on "Tale of Two Fingers" and "Whims of Chambers". Philly Joe Jones shimmers on brushes throughout the album.~ Coltrane penned two of the tunes ("Nita" and "Just for the Love"), Chambers contributed three tunes ("Tale of the Fingers", the catchy "Whims of Chambers", and the beautiful ballad "Dear Ann"), and Byrd contributed two tunes ("Omicron" and "We Six"). The fact that each of these composers have slightly different writing styles and the fact that each player solos on almost every track adds to the variety of the session.~ Highly recommended as a fine example of 1950's hard bop jazz.

Mostly noted for the inclusion of early Coltrane. 'Whims Of Chambers' was also the first Blue Note LP by this great Miles Davis bass player. Chambers was not only the longest serving Davis bass player, he was also the longest serving musician to ever hold a chair in the notoriously fickle trumpeter's bands. There is plenty of evidence on this CD as to why Chambers held onto the bass chair for so long. The title track, a bass and guitar unison head, carries a great pizzicato solo whilst the sixth track, 'Tale of the Fingers', has four choruses of bowed bass, still a rarity in modern jazz to this day. Both of these are Chambers compositions, the only otehr being 'Dear Ann'. The other tunes include two by Donald Byrd and another two by Coltrane. Not necessarily essential listening but a solid LP by a consistently strong set of players

Coltrane, H. Silver, D. Byrd, K. Burrell, P.J. Jones etc son algunos de los grandes nombres de la época dorada del jazz y el Hard Bob. Aquí reunidos bajo el liderazgo de Paul Chambers (bajista en casi todos los discos de Miles Davis de los 50 no por casualidad). A pesar de que el contrabajo no es un instrumento protagonista Chambers se luce en algunos temas tocando con el arco o con pizzicato. Por todo lo dicho es un disco que merece estar en tu colección.En cuanto al diseño y sonido imita a los discos de la Blue Note pero seguramente esté copiado de un CD. Si quieres conseguir el vinilo original de su época no lo he visto más barato de 100€ por lo que esta reedición era lo que necesitábamos.No le he dado las 5 estrellas ya que no hay ningún tema "standard" ni que transcendiera y que habría hecho el disco más redondo.

Non conoscevo l'etichetta che ha ristampato il (bellissimo) disco. Consiglio

un cd che consiglierei a tutti gli amanti del genere. L'artista, arcinoto, in questa registrazione riassume tutte le sue strordinarie qualità. Registrazione eccellente. Acquistatelo, non ve ne pentirete.

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