Paul Chambers plays the mambo (sort of)

Paul Chambers in 1958
 by Dennis Stock

Boxed multi-disk sets are wonderful, but they can be a challenge to assimilate. Case in point, the sensational Miles Davis - Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings, released in 1996. It comprises six CDs full of music that gave us four albums, so you do the math: it contains a lot of music with a lot of repetition.

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".

Reg Kehoe, the Marimba Queens... and that bass

Source: ... tapewrekcs ...

Although posterity is, generally, a just filter, it's still a filter. Like the scale of a map reproduces geography, it simplifies and narrows reality. Therefore, whatever reaches us music fans from the past is just a modicum of material with almost undeniable artistic value but subject to legal and corporate considerations: who has the material, and whether they have the rights to publish it. Or the resources. Or the will to do it.

Let this solemn introduction give way to what will be the most absurd video ever in these pages. In 1944 (according to IMDB), percussionist Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens, recorded the tune "A Study in Brown" in the fourth and last segment of a soundie (the grandfather of video clips), directed by Ben K. Blake for the Soundies Distributing Corporation of America. The orchestra was formed by Kehoe, seven percussionist ladies, plus the exuberant double bassist Frank Di Nunzio, Sr. There's not much left to say regarding the music. As for their popularity, they are mentioned in several issues of Billboard, mostly in the 1940s.

The Blakey-Chambers duets

On Sunday, March 29, 1959, right between the two sessions that gave us Kind of Blue, the bassist on those, Paul Chambers (age: 23) and veteran drummer Art Blakey (age: 39) seemed to have got early to a recording session led by Sonny Clark.

According to Michael Cuscuna, who unearthed these tapes in the 1970s:

[...] another odd early find in the Blue Note vaults. I was systematically going through every reel of every unissued session. When I put on the first reel of an unissued March 29, 1959 Sonny Clark session, which was ultimately released as My Conception, there was not a piano note to be heard. The first two takes were spectacular performances of "I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" and "What Is This Thing Called Love" by what could be none other than Paul Chambers and Art Blakey. I never did find out why these came about (perhaps the rest of the band was late), but I’m glad they did.

Glad indeed. If Chambers and Blakey always maintained a very high standard in all their recordings, here, with nowhere to hide, they both give a masterclass in what a rhythm section should be. Without horns, Blakey can afford to be more subtle, which only makes him swing more, not less, as you can hear in "What Is This Thing Called Love?". In this less-is-more vein, Blakey's tour de force is actually, at least to my ears, the slower but still brisk Irving Berlin tune. His versatility with the drum set, or even something so simple-sounding like his playing behind Chambers's opening solo, is mesmerizing.

Available on Mosaic Select: Paul Chambers, and on Art Blakey's Drums Around the Corner