On February 26, the venerated multi-instrumentalist and composer Joe Chambers will release Samba de Maracatu, a notable Blue Note Records return for a significant figure in the label’s history.
The album’s Brazilian flavored title track “Samba de Maracatu,”
which is available today to stream or download, was composed
by Chambers and features him performing drums, vibraphone, and
percussion with Brad
Merritt on keyboards and Steve Haines on
bass. The album is a nine-song set of original compositions, standards, and
pieces by Wayne Shorter, Bobby Hutcherson, and Horace Silver.
In the mid-to-late 1960s, Chambers played drums for numerous Blue
Note luminaries appearing on some of the decade’s most progressive albums, including Shorter’s Adam’s
Apple and Etcetera,
Hutcherson’s Components and Happenings, Freddie
Hubbard’s Breaking Point, Joe Henderson’s Mode for Joe, Sam
Rivers’ Contours,
Andrew Hill’s Andrew!!!,
Donald Byrd’s Fancy Free,
and many more.
The label’s owners—Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff—offered Chambers a
chance to record his own album for the imprint during that fertile period, but
he was riding so high on recording and touring with so many jazz greats that he
declined the opportunity. Chambers eventually did release his own Blue
Note debut Mirrors in 1998 featuring
trumpeter Eddie Henderson, saxophonist Vincent Herring, pianist Mulgrew
Miller, and bassist Ira Coleman.
On Samba de
Maracatu, Chambers asserts himself more as a mallet
player, particularly on the vibraphone. Throughout the album, he uses the
vibraphone as the lead melodic and improvisational voice that often converses
with Merritt’s piano accompaniments and solos. While Samba de Maracatu isn’t a
Brazilian jazz album in this strictest sense, Chambers utilizes
various rhythms and indigenous Brazilian percussion instruments on several
pieces, including the title track, which references the syncretic Afro-Brazil
rhythms that were originated in the northeast region of Brazil.
Joe Chambers Samba de Maracatu
(Blue Note B003315302)
Street Date: February 26, 2021
Joe Chambers-drums, vibraphone, percussion, Brad
Merritt-keyboards, Steve Haines-bass
Track 8: featuring MC Parrain (Joe Chambers/Fenton Chambers)
UPC CODE: 0602435371160
http://www.bluenote.com/joe-chambers-samba-de-maracatu-out-feb-26/
