Bass Player: Paul Chambers

Miles Davis and Gil Evans recorded a number of iconic albums during their time together and Paul Chambers was the bass player on all of themn including ‘Sketches of Spain’, ‘Miles Ahead’, ‘Quite Nights’ and ‘Porgy And Bess’. This transcription is a brief sequence from ‘The Buzzard Song’ from ‘Porgy And Bess’ in which Gil Evans pairs Chambers’s bass with the tuba of Bill Barber. An exquisite passage that Bilbo transcribed with the intention of including it in his book ‘Mr. P.C: the Life and Music of Paul Chambers (Equinox Publishing). The transcriptions were never included in the book but here is the passage in question. It appears at 2.24 on the attached video and shows the skills of Gil Evans the arranger; the choice to pair these two voices in this way was inspired. For information, the buzzard in ‘Porgy And Bess’ is a metaphor for death.