Paul Chambers

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For the Australian rules footballer, see Paul Chambers (footballer).

Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers, Jr. (April 22 1935 – January 4 1969) was one of the most influential jazz bassists of the 20th century. A prominent figure in many rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the length and breadth of his work in this short period but also his nearly perfect time, intonation, and virtuosic improvisations.

Biography

Born in Pittsburgh on April 22, 1935, Chambers was raised in Detroit where he studied music. He entered music through a windy side entrance when he and several schoolmates were fingered to take up music and the baritone horn became his assignment. Later he took up the tuba. "I got along pretty well, but it's quite a job to carry it around in those long parades, and I didn't like the instrument that much." Chambers became a string bassist around 1949 in Detroit, where he had been living for a while since the death of his mother.

Playing his first gig at one of the little bars in the Hastings Street area, he was soon doing club jobs with Thad Jones, Barry Harris and others who have since effected the Detroit-New York junction. His formal bass training got going in earnest in 1952, when he began taking lessons with a bassist in the Detroit Symphony. Paul did some classical work himself, with a group called the Detroit String Band that was, in effect, a rehearsal symphony orchestra. Studying at Cass Tech. off and on from 1952 to 1955, he played in Cass' own symphony, and in various other student groups, one of which had him blowing baritone sax. By the time he left for New York at the invitation of Paul Quinichette, he had absorbed a working knowledge of several armfuls of instruments.

From 1954 on through 1955, he gained significance touring with such musicians as Bennie Green, Paul Quinichette, George Wallington, J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding. In 1955 he joined the Miles Davis quintet, staying on with the group until 1963 and appearing on the 1959 classic Miles Davis album Kind of Blue. In fact, one of Paul's most noted performances was on that album's first cut, "So What," which opens with a brief but sublime duet with pianist Bill Evans. Possessing one of the most immediately recognizable bass playing sounds and styles, Paul Chambers was the bulwark of the Miles Davis quintets and sextets from the mid-'50s through the early '60s. From 1963 until 1966 Chambers played often with the Wynton Kelly trio, also freelancing as a sidemen for other important names in jazz all throughout his career. Over his lifetime Paul Chambers developed addictions to both alcohol and heroin. On January 4, 1969 he died of tuberculosis at the premature age of 33.

Influence

The role of the jazz bass player was largely a metronomic assignment until, in 1939, Jimmy Blanton's flight through time and space, when he alighted in the Duke Ellington airport, transformed the entire scene. Since that time scores of talented men have put hundreds of fingers to work proving that Blanton was right; that the bass is capable of melodic invention and rhythmic variety unknown before his day.

Oscar Pettiford is the man generally assumed to have inherited the Blanton mantle, though Ray Brown, Red Mitchell, Percy Heath and a few more have exhibited formidable prowess and extraordinary heights of inspiration. And now, to join the handful of giants of whom one can speak in the same breath as these few, the inner jazz circle has welcomed Paul Chambers.

Paul was about 15 when he started to listen to Bird and Bud, his first jazz influences. Oscar Pettiford and Ray Brown, the first bassists he admired, were followed in his book by Percy Heath, Milt Hinton and Wendell Marshall for their rhythm section work, Charles Mingus and George Duvivier for their technical powers and for their efforts in broadening the scope of jazz bass. Blanton, of course, is his all-time favorite, the perennial poll winner in his ballot.

His accompaniment and solos with Davis and other leaders remain distinctive and influential. He and Slam Stewart were the first jazz bassists to perform arco or bowed solos.