Now Chambers has returned to Blue Note for his latest album, Samba de Maracatu. It's his first leadership album in five years and serves up a mix of styles and moods ranging from the standards You and the Night and the Music and Never Let Me Go (with a vocal by Stephanie Jordan) to three originals. One of them features a rap vocal by MC Parrain. The track is New York State of Mind Rain, an overlay of Nas’s 1994 N.Y. State of Mind and Chambers’s Mind Rain, from his Double Exposure album in 1978 for Muse.
Also on the album are interpretations of Hutcherson's Visions, Wayne Shorter's Rio and Karl Ratzer's Sabah el Nur. Backing Chambers are pianist Brad Merritt and bassist Steve Haines. Chambers overdubbed his vibraphone and percussion after the basic tracks were recorded. The highlight for me is Horace Silver's Ecaroh, on which the Chambers Trio creates a beautiful rendition of an already spectacular song. It's so good I almost wish the album had more Silver, especially since Chambers already recorded Ecaroh on Landscape in 2016.
Born in Stoneacre, Va., in 1942, Chambers was raised in Chester, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb. He studied at the Philadelphia Conservatory and American University in Washington, D.C. At 18, Chambers began working professionally in an R&B group fronted by Bobby Lewis. He also began playing with the JFK Quintet, which performed at D.C.'s Bohemian Caverns six nights a week. That's where Hubbard first heard Chambers and brought him into his group.
Chambers began teaching at New York's New School in 1990. He recently retired from the classroom to spend more time as a jazz instrumentalist, composer and bandleader. As we can hear on Chambers's new album, he's still pushing the envelope.
This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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