Joe Chambers: The NYC–Montreal Connection

By Phillip Lutz I Mar. 21, 2023

Chambers’ latest recording features some serendipitous, international flair.
(Photo: Randy Cole)

Joe Chambers came to New York this month to record his new Blue Note album. The session yielded nine tracks that, on their own, would have stood as a worthy document of a mallet master who, at age 80, remains a vibrant link to the label’s storied past.

“We did that — boom! — it was finished,” Chambers said by phone from his home in Wilmington, North Carolina.

But not long after the session wrapped, Chambers got an email from Andrés Vial, a onetime student of his at New York’s New School. He hadn’t heard from the pianist in years. Vial, who had returned to his native Montreal, asked Chambers to come up and do some overdubbing on a project of his. Chambers agreed and, to his surprise, found a cadre of musicians from all over the world — Guinea, Cuba, Brazil, Congo — as well as an old friend and new transplant to Montreal, bassist Ira Coleman.

Vial had gathered the group into an ensemble whose sound and songbook, Chambers recalled, “knocked me out. I said, ‘This is great. I’d like to put some of these things we’re doing on the record I’ve cut already in New York.’”

So he scrapped three tracks from the New York session — two by Thelonious Monk, the other by Jymie Merritt — and replaced them with three new ones laid down during a recording session Vial co-produced in Montreal that August. Among them was the tune, adapted from Vial’s book and credited to him, that ultimately gave the album its title: “Dance Kobina.”

To be sure, the album has a de facto bifurcated structure; Chambers is the only musician on both the New York and Montreal sessions. But the simpatico among the musicians on either side of the border seems constant. That is a tribute to the respect Chambers commands among both groups.

Echoing sentiment across the board, Vial said: “I’m greatly indebted to him.”

Vial traces his relationship with Chambers to a “transformative” master class the elder musician held at Montreal’s McGill University in 1999. Two years later, Vial was enrolled in Chambers’ percussion ensemble at the New School. In it, he said, he felt a “thrill” as he and Chambers played vibraphones side by side, delving into classic repertoire that included material Chambers had written for Max Roach’s legendary percussion group M’Boom.

These days, Vial is bringing that experience to bear as a doctoral candidate at McGill, looking at the ties that bind the Latin, African and Afro-diasporan musical traditions. Chambers, for his part, has lived these traditions — immersing himself in global percussion as a youth in Philadelphia, as a member of M’Boom starting in 1970, as a bandleader right up to his most recent recording, Samba De Macaratu, in 2021.

“There’s definitely a connection between the two of us,” Vial said.

Vial’s ensemble serves as the vehicle for both his recording and academic interests. It recalls the ensemble Chambers ran at the New School, which in turn harked back to M’Boom. “There’s definitely a lineage there,” Vial noted.

Chambers, identifying a “commonality” with Vial in their syncretic approach, found he could shape raw material from Vial’s ensemble into “Dance Kobina” — a title, with Ghanaian associations, of his choosing — by a process of concision, shortening the “A” section in relation to the “B” section until it fit a radio-friendly song form. Even in its raw form, though, he found that it had immense attraction for what he called its “buoyancy.”

That buoyancy owes in no small measure to the artful play of 3/4 and 6/8 qualities, which seem to conflate in Coleman’s hands. “You can hear the bass line in different meters simultaneously,” Vial said, noting that such ambiguity is common to folkloric Argentine music, which he claims as part of his heritage.

“As a soloist,” Vial said, “it’s tricky and really fun.” His probing keyboard lines, lively and lightly percussive, convey that sense.

On Chambers’ Montreal session, he plays only drums, and he seems energized by the interactive possibilities with both Congolese percussionist Elli Miller Maboungou and vibraphonist Michael Davidson, who, inspired by what he called Chambers’ “rhythmic momentum,” overdubs a striking marimba counterline on Chambers’ “Gazelle Suite.” Davidson said he found sustenance in Chambers’ stories about playing drums on multiple Blue Note albums with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson in the 1960s.

For Chambers, it helped to be anchored on the Montreal session by Coleman, who, in addition to his unerring sense of pulse, adds historical perspective. Coleman played on Chambers’ albums Mirrors (1999) and Landscapes (2016), but he was in Chambers’ orbit long before that, paying his dues as a youthful roadie with M’Boom. As the young Coleman moved equipment, he observed the group’s members — top players all, among them Freddie Waits, Omar Clay and Warren Smith — and found Chambers “the most multifaceted.”

He contributed as composer, arranger, drummer, vibraphonist and pianist — and did so with a minimum of fuss.

“He was very quiet,” Coleman recalled. “He just delivered.”

Chambers’ ethos continues to be one of largely letting his musical prowess speak for him. Yet there is little doubt about who is in control, in the studio and on the bandstand, according to Rick Germanson, the pianist on the New York session, who has worked with Chambers at a variety of New York venues and, along with Coleman, appeared on Landscapes.

“He has a clear concept of what he wants,” Germanson said.

Germanson came to Chambers’ attention by recommendation from Ray Mantilla, a charter member of M’Boom, while subbing in the percussionist’s salsa band. Now Chambers’ first-call pianist, Germanson contributes a deft reharmonization on the new album’s opener, Kurt Weill’s “This Is New.” Germanson also takes the album’s opening solo, an impressive one that ranges widely but never loses touch with the melody.

For most of the New York session, Germanson, Mark Lewandowski on bass and Chambers on drums provide a bed on which Chambers can lay his vibraphone, overdubbed directly after the trio lays down a track. Joined on most tracks by Cuban percussionist Emilio Valdes Cortes, the group provides context as Chambers makes the case that his vibraphone playing is the equal of his drumming.

Given his stature as a drummer, that is no easy case to make. But as a vibraphonist, he makes his points, as he does on drums, with an economy of motion and an abundance of style. The tunes are a varied lot, among them “Ruth” and “Caravanserai,” both reductions of movements from his Moving Pictures Suite commissioned for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s year of the drum in 2003; “Power To The People,” a Joe Henderson swinger for which he recruited saxophonist Marvin Carter; and “Moon Dancer,” a Karl Ratzer ballad for which he had hoped to hire a singer before the money ran out.

Going forward, Chambers said, he would like to play more vibraphone. And the new album’s outlier — “Intermezzo,” on which Chambers forgoes the drums for some otherworldly real-time interplay with Germanson — suggests an alternate path for that endeavor.

But those hungry for the sound of Chambers in his pre-vibes heyday might seek out the clarity of the unadorned trio on “This Is New.” His signature ride cymbal, seemingly unencumbered by thoughts of an impending overdub, is operating with a special abandon, having lost none of its drive — and gained a lifetime of wisdom — since Chambers, then a rising star in his mid-20s, recorded the tune in the mid-’60s for Chick Corea’s Tones For Joan’s Bones. DB