sgcim

As far as music goes, I only post this every time this topic comes up:

I'm getting up to the end where he was doing a gig, and in the middle of a tune, let out a horrendous scream then threw his bass down and ran out the front door of the club. The leader of the band asked his chick Micky, what was that all about? She said Paul had a 'veil'. He asked her what a veil was, and she said, "Paul was clairvoyant". He asked her what that had to do with it, and she said, "Paul had seen his mother walk into the club". He said, "So what?" She said, "Paul's mother has been dead for several years."

The great thing about the book is that Chambers played with literally every artist who came to NYC during the time period you mentioned, from Tina Brooks to Wilbur Hardin, to Dave Burns to Billy Mitchell, etc...and the author gives some background on each one, and tells how they played on each cut of the albums they played on. His agreement with Miles was that he could record and gig with anyone that called him if Miles didn't have a gig with him, so he was doing one night in Chicago, followed by one night in NY followed by another night in Chicago! He told people that he wasn't going to live to be 30.

Add National Health to that list. Wherever his brother Pye went, he would be involved. Here's my favorite flute solo of his with NH RIP, Jimmy

Not on my skin.

There are some stories in the Paul Chambers book about how the musicians loved the freedom that Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff gave them and even named some tunes they wrote with the name 'Lion' in the titles. Chambers was the only musician who cared enough about the sound that he got out of his bass in Rudy van Gelder's studio, that he'd spend hours of his precious time going there on Saturday and Sunday mornings working with Rudy about how they could get the best possible sound out of his bass on the Blue Note recordings that took place there, without asking for any pay. Another story about PC that showed what a great person he was, besides being a great musician, was when the Miles Davis band used Sonny Stitt to replace Coltrane on a tour in Europe. They were sharing a bus with Jazz Five, a British jazz group that had the great bass player Malcolm Cecil in it. PC walked into the bus and immediately took the seat next to Cecil and after complimenting him about how great he sounded in the concert the night before, got into a deep conversation with him about topics concerning bass playing. Stitt came aboard the bus, and almost banged his sax case on the head of one of the Jazz Five, and didn't even apologize, and then stared at Chambers and Cecil having such an intense conversation together, getting more and more upset. In Cecil's words: 'Stitt glared at me, leant down and said said ito Paul's earin a stage whisper, "What the fuck do you think you're doing sitting next to that motherfuckin' honky? Paul looked him straight in the eyes and said calmly and quietly, "Mind your own motherfuckin' business asshole, I'll sit wherever I goddamn want. This guy's my buddy" Then he turned to me and winked and said, "Don't pay him no never mind" and picked up our conversation just where we left off as if nothing happened. Stitt's face was thunderous and he stomped off all the way to the back seat and never said another word to anyone during that journey'. Chambers and Cecil became firm friends, and PC was responsible for encouraging Cecil to work on his bowing technique, leading Cecil to become the the principal bassist with the BBC Radio Orchestra, and later perform bass and cello conciertos as a solo bass virtuoso. He never would have gone down that path without Paul's influence and encouragement.

But I only go out at night since the pandemic.

I remember the story about Pres being asked what he thought of some musician playing some fast, technical solo, and then asking the player, ""Yes Lady, but can you sing me a song?" I always liked that one.

I'm glad someone's saying it. Thanks for posting it!

Oh, I see; I must have wandered into some type of Bizzaro World Organissimo,

I'm reading "Mr.PC: The Life and Music of Paul Chambers", and I can remember arguing with some posters here that Bill Evans was an important part of "Kind of Blue"and various posters saying he had barely anything to do with the album. I reach the section of the Kind of Blue sessions and I read a passage saying that Miles Davis "planned the music around the piano playing of Bill Evans", taken from the book by A.Kahn, "The Making of Miles Davis' Masterpiece" London Granta Books. I mention that fact to a friend of mine today, including the discussion here on Bill Evans' role in KOB, and he just mumbles, "sounds like a bunch of racists" in regards to the discussion here...

Since your screen name is Face of the Bass, I've been reading "Mr.PC": The Life and Music of Paul Chambers" by Rob Palmer. It deals heavily with every note that PC played for Blue Note. I'm not kidding, this guy analyzes every aspect of the Blue Note albums PC played on, even his walking bass lines! In 1958, PC played on 53 now classic jazz albums, and in addition was working what must have been over 300 gigs in clubs, concerts working with Miles, Coltrane, Hal McKusick, Chet Baker, Wynton Kelley, Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones, Jimmy Cobb, Cannonball, Phineas Newborn, Wilbur Hardin, Bill Evans, Bobby Jaspar, Eddie Costa, Kenny Burrell, etc...he was even doing a gig on Christmas Eve. And he was only 22 years old!

Happy 99th, Roy!

A heart attack at 58.

Sorry to hear this, RIP..

Whoops! Thanks!

Enter his name on you tube.

According to this video on his You Tube channel the great jazz guitarist Clint Strong won't be able to play the guitar again due to a stroke that he suffered in the middle of 2023. Very sad news.

RIP, I liked the timbre of SL's voice a lot.

Only 63? What a terrible thing. He was an Indiana cat who was friends with Jim Herrington of SD, which was how he got with Fagen. RIP.

I guess I fall into the "better with horns" camp. Last Sunday as we drove in to Brooklyn for what's left of the family's annual dinner out together, we listened to Sid Gribbets' Sunday special on Stitt on KCR. I kept thinking, "Who the heck is that pianist playing with him? He shaw nuff be sounding good. I was amazed to find out that OP was the pianist on almost all of the quartet cuts Sid played. I said to myself, "Well I'll be darned!" We had a very nice, peaceful dinner together, until I made the mistake of asking my sister (an R&B fanatic for 60 years, and ex-Jimmy Garrison student) what she thought of hip-hop. Just for asking that question, I was met with a torrent of four-letter words that I can't mention here. and we rushed out of the restaurant, and made our separate ways home.

He didn't seem to understand English too well back then. I was just reading the Mark Murphy bio by Peter Jones, and he was so desperate for publicity for his album, that he appeared on The Dating Game back in the 60s. I doubt that he told them he was gay, but he was the winner! LOL! All he cared about was showing the audience a copy of his latest album. His date was the actress Susan Strasberg. They won a 'dream date' to Greece. He said she was only four feet tall! I looked for it on You Tube, but I couldn't find it.

Yeah, the few times they showed it!

Yeah, like they wouldn't show the bedroom on the Dick Van Dyke Show. Bedrooms and toilets didn't exist for some people. TTK mentioned it. I always thought it was More Science HS. They were so great. I clicked on your Mash-a-Clown link. I'm gonna have to listen to your radio show. Canada seems like it might be the last sane place in the world!!!

I remember when it first came out, they were all upset about the character Mongo's name, because they said it was making fun of mongoloid people. i wonder how Mongo Santamaria felt? Now they're doing this? I once got banned for a week from a music forum for jokingly using the name Commie Martyrs High School" from the Firesign Theater Porgie Tirebiter album. I tried to tell the Moderator that it was from a comedy album, and not some political statement, but the jerk wouldn't listen to me! Now even public radio isn't going to play any Firesign Theater albums on the air? That stuff got me through high school! I was just reading a book on Donald Fagen, and he was being interviewed in some magazine about some radio station refusing to play the song "Janie Runaway" as the focus track for their Two Against Nature album promotion. The interviewer rightly asked him if it was due to decency or family values concern, but Fagen answered it was because the song had a sax solo, and the station had a policy of only playing songs with guitar solos! LOL! This was in 2000, and Fagen said they didn't care about seedy lyrics at that time, in fact they loved it. The moral climate of the country was such that you could talk about screwing your grandmother, and they wouldn't mind it, as long as it had a guitar solo in it. So I think we can say that the moral/political climate of the country has radically changed since then.