Paul Chambers was 22, and already one of the busiest bass players on record. Robert Levin, in the original notes, traces him from Pittsburgh to Detroit as a boy, through school bands where he played baritone horn and tuba, to New York and the Miles Davis Quintet. In 1956 he had been named a new star in the Down Beat critics poll. Blue Note had already made one record under his name, Whims of Chambers, and he turned up on many of the label's other dates.
The date was Sunday, May 19, 1957, at Van Gelder's in Hackensack, with Alfred Lion producing. Donald Byrd played trumpet and Tommy Flanagan piano. Elvin Jones, the youngest of the three Jones brothers from Pontiac, Michigan, played drums. Clifford Jordan, on tenor, came from Chicago; Levin says he had just finished four weeks with Max Roach and was about to take Hank Mobley's place with Horace Silver. Benny Golson, then in Dizzy Gillespie's big band, wrote two tunes for the session.
Side one opens with Golson's "Minor Run-Down." Chambers takes the first solo, then Jordan, Byrd and Flanagan, and it ends with Chambers trading with Jones's brushes. Chambers wrote "The Hand of Love," which has a Latin feel in its introduction. "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise" is for the trio alone: Flanagan, Chambers and Jones, without the horns.
Side two opens with Golson's "Four Strings," the one to listen for. Chambers plays it with the bow, in unison with the horns at the start and the end, and Levin says the effect is of a guitar suddenly joining the band. "What's New" comes at a medium tempo rather than as a slow ballad. "Beauteous," another Chambers tune, closes the record with a feature for Jones.
Levin had a special word for the pianist.
Tommy Flanagan's soft, lyrical touch is a constant delight throughout this or any other album he happens to appear on.
Robert Levin, original liner notes
The reviews came the next spring, when the record finally came out in April 1958, almost a year after the session. Billboard put it simply:
Chambers grows on bass with each new effort.
Billboard, 1958, reprinted on The Jazz Tome
Martin Williams, in Down Beat, gave it three and a half stars and liked Golson's pieces and Flanagan's playing behind the soloists. Ralph J. Gleason singled out Jones's drumming.
The sleeve was designed by Tom Hannan.
A second take of "Four Strings" was left off the LP and waited for the CD. Two weeks after this date, Chambers and Jordan were back at Van Gelder's for Jordan's own septet record, and in July Chambers made Bass on Top.
