Mr. P.C.: The Life and Music of Paul Chambers

Winner of the 2013 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research in Jazz During his 13 year career between 1955 and 1968, Paul Chambers was one of the leading double bass players in jazz, performing with a wide variety of artists and a range of the music's sub-genres and recording over 300 albums for labels such as Blue Note, Riverside, Mercury and Columbia Records. Chambers performed alongside some of the greatest names in jazz including Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins, Wes Montgomery, Joe Henderson, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Gil Evans and Freddie Hubbard. Although he recorded half a dozen LPs under his own name, including his own compositions, he is probably best remembered for his contribution to the greatest jazz recording of all time; Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue where his bass notes are legendary. Mr P. C. tells the story of this quiet giant of jazz; his birth in Pittsburgh, youth in Detroit, his early rise to jazz celebrity, his time at the top, his struggle against alcoholism and heroin addiction and the circumstances surrounding his tragic death of tuberculosis, aged 33, in 1969. Using material from other literary sources and interviews with family members, friends and colleagues in the jazz fraternity, this book tells in full for the first time this influential musician's story. The book includes a comprehensive discography detailing all of his recordings both as a sideman and bandleader.