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| Paul Chambers in 1958 by Dennis Stock |
However, some attentive listening with the appropriate equipment—enough sound on all frequencies, particularly the bass—can unveil treasures such as Paul Chambers's bass line on take 5 of "New Rhumba".
As if to enhance the "Spanish tinge"—Jelly Roll Morton's prerequisite for jazz—in Ahmad Jamal's "New Rhumba" almost 2/3 into the track (at the 2:47 mark) Chambers doesn't walk in four—nor does he bounces in two—as he does elsewhere, but he plays a "Latin"-sounding pattern which is a joy to hear.
Of the three takes of "New Rhumba" included in the set (#3, #5, and the master; at least 12 were started), this is the only one where Chambers plays that pattern, which in the jazz canon has at least one rather well-known precedent: the intro to Charlie Parker's January 1951 version of "Star Eyes":
... where the trumpet player with Parker is, incidentally, Miles Davis.
From direct testimonies and some bits from those Miles Ahead outtakes, we know that Gil Evans tended to work on the fly, trying things on the spot. It's not unlikely that, for that take, he asked Chambers to play something "Latin" and that either Evans or Chambers himself thought of that Charlie Parker record. Asked about this, Chambers's biographer Rob Palmer, a bass player himself, says that "it is very rare for Chambers to play anything with a Latin feel and, in my experience, it tended to be when it was written. Gil Evans did a lot of Latin tinges in these recordings so my guess is that the section you are referring to is a loosely composed bass part". Coincidentally, Chambers revisits the "Spanish tinge" in "Blues for Pablo" on the same session.
As for the actual pattern, this is a transcript of the intro to "Star Eyes" from Larry Koch's book Yardbird Suite.
Another bass player friend, Pablo Aslan, says this is a variation on the mambo—noting the first eighth note tied to the fourth in the first full bar—"more syncopated and anticipated" than the classical version of the Cuban rhythm, which makes it fit better with swing rhythms. Both Pablo and Rob concur that Chambers's playing this must have been Evans's idea.
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Music from Miles Ahead: in 2018 I had an article out about how Miles Ahead came to be. It can be read here (PDF). More recently, I've put together playlists reflecting the music as it was played in the recording sessions, for streaming on YouTube and Spotify. It can be listened to, here:
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Thanks and credits:
As if to enhance the "Spanish tinge"—Jelly Roll Morton's prerequisite for jazz—in Ahmad Jamal's "New Rhumba" almost 2/3 into the track (at the 2:47 mark) Chambers doesn't walk in four—nor does he bounces in two—as he does elsewhere, but he plays a "Latin"-sounding pattern which is a joy to hear.
Of the three takes of "New Rhumba" included in the set (#3, #5, and the master; at least 12 were started), this is the only one where Chambers plays that pattern, which in the jazz canon has at least one rather well-known precedent: the intro to Charlie Parker's January 1951 version of "Star Eyes":
... where the trumpet player with Parker is, incidentally, Miles Davis.
From direct testimonies and some bits from those Miles Ahead outtakes, we know that Gil Evans tended to work on the fly, trying things on the spot. It's not unlikely that, for that take, he asked Chambers to play something "Latin" and that either Evans or Chambers himself thought of that Charlie Parker record. Asked about this, Chambers's biographer Rob Palmer, a bass player himself, says that "it is very rare for Chambers to play anything with a Latin feel and, in my experience, it tended to be when it was written. Gil Evans did a lot of Latin tinges in these recordings so my guess is that the section you are referring to is a loosely composed bass part". Coincidentally, Chambers revisits the "Spanish tinge" in "Blues for Pablo" on the same session.
As for the actual pattern, this is a transcript of the intro to "Star Eyes" from Larry Koch's book Yardbird Suite.
Another bass player friend, Pablo Aslan, says this is a variation on the mambo—noting the first eighth note tied to the fourth in the first full bar—"more syncopated and anticipated" than the classical version of the Cuban rhythm, which makes it fit better with swing rhythms. Both Pablo and Rob concur that Chambers's playing this must have been Evans's idea.
~~~~
Music from Miles Ahead: in 2018 I had an article out about how Miles Ahead came to be. It can be read here (PDF). More recently, I've put together playlists reflecting the music as it was played in the recording sessions, for streaming on YouTube and Spotify. It can be listened to, here:
- Session 1 (discography): YouTube / Spotify
- Session 2 (discography): YouTube / Spotify
- Session 3 (discography): YouTube / Spotify
- Session 4 (discography): YouTube / Spotify
- Session 5 (discography): YouTube / Spotify
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- Rob Palmer's biography of Paul Chambers, Mr. P.C., is here. It won the 2013 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research in Jazz. Its introduction can be read here.
- Lawrence E. Koch's Yardbird Suite - A Compendium of the Music and Life of Charlie Parker was published by Northeastern University Press (ISBN: 1-55552-384-1).
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