Cross-Rhythms is an introspective into the life and musicality of Joe Chambers. Through analytical history and detailed biography, author Schnorr gives deep context to Chambers’s career, his contributions to the evolution of jazz, his development as a composer, and his work with Max Roach’s seminal percussion group M’Boom. The development of jazz from hard bop to avant garde, the music industry, and Chambers’ drumming style are explored in detail.
An extensive interview with Chambers and many historical photos and images, such as concert programs, and lead sheets to several of Chambers’ compositions are also included.
Drummer, composer and sometime vibraphonist Joe Chambers secured his place in jazz history in the mid-1960s as the drummer on a string of historic Blue Note albums recorded by Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, and Bobby Hutcherson, among others, and also on a series of important albums with Archie Schepp in Impulse! Records. In this biographical analysis, Chambers’ work is explored in the context of the important and influential music and artists that he has worked with over the course of a career spanning into its sixth decade.
Born in 1942, Chambers is a seminal figure of the musical explorations that propelled the innovative developments of modern jazz drumming during the 1960s. Firmly rooted in the musical conventions of the bebop tradition, his musical versatility and stylistic flexibility reflect the transformational process that bridged the gap between the evolution of the so-called “modern” drummer of the bebop style to the “progressive” and “conceptual” drummer of post-bop jazz. Chambers’ career was launched as a recording sideman with Freddie Hubbard’s Breaking Point in 1964, and he released his first album as a leader, The Almoravid, in 1973.
BIO:
Joe Chambers has worked with some of the most influential jazz figures of the last several decades and is a recognized performer and composer whose works have been performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. As a sideman and leader, Chambers has recorded more than 500 albums. He has recorded with Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Andrew Hill and many more. His recording credits include Hubbard’s Breaking Point, Joe Henderson’s Mode for Joe, Bobby Hutcherson’s Components, Wayne Shorter’s Schizophrenia and Etcetera, McCoy Tyner’s Tender Moments, Archie Shepp’s New Thing at Newport, Charles Mingus’ Like a Bird, Chick Corea’s Tones for Joan’s Bones, and many others.
Chambers’ compositions have been covered by Hutcherson, Hubbard and M’Boom; he has also contributed to soundtracks for several Spike Lee films, including Mo’ Better Blues. Chambers is the first Thomas S. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Jazz in the Department of Music at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His most recent recording is Joe Chambers Dance Kobina, released in 2023 (UMG/Blue Note)
