Billboard : 10/28/1957
Special Merit Jazz Album

A showcase for Paul Chambers, one of the most talented young bassists in jazz. Chambers utilizes it to good advantage, and has superlative support in the persons of Hank Jones, piano; A. Taylor, drums; Kenny Burrell, guitar, who are noteworthy in context and in solo … A well-integrated modern effort that deserves exposure. Try Confession’ as demo-band.

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Miami Herald
Fred Sherman : 03/16/1958

The bass fiddle can make a jazz group get up and go. Bass on Top is as bass an album as ever released. Paul Chambers is the man with the big fiddle, with minor roles played by Hank Jones, piano; Art Taylor, drums, and Kenny Burrell on guitar. Four fine men, but there’s little else but the bass, both bowed and plucked. Six tracks only.

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Pittsburgh Courier : 11/09/1957
Harold L. Keith : 4 stars

Al Lion’s Blue Note Studios have placed the emphasis upon youth in many of their latest pressings.

The names of Lee Morgan, Johnny Griffin, Ken Burrell, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Smith are now accepted by jazzdom’s afficionados as the living end of everything in the idiom. On Blue Note 1569 two of these youngbloods, Messrs. Chambers and Burrell, give folks a chance to hear them play in a quiet mood on a genteel kick.

To this pair has been added the formidable duo of Hank Jones on the piano and one, Art Taylor, on drums. The quartet’s talents are combined on Yesterdays, You Would Be So Nice to Come Home To, Dear Old Stockholm, The Theme, Confessin’ and Chasin’ the Bird.

The proverbial old dog tray never picked his bone any cleaner than does Burrell, his guitar, and Paul, his viol. Suffice it to be said that sympathetic treatment has been given a sextet of great tunes.

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San Francisco Examiner
C.H. Garrigues : 12/29/1957

Paul Chambers continues to emerge as a great bassist – but not on this one. The experiment here consists in giving the bass the position of lead horn. It is not successful. Kenny Burrell does fine work on guitar.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 11/17/1957

A fine example of the playing of the No. 1 bassist at the moment with good lyric solos, propulsive rhythm and the help of excellent guitarist Kenny Burrell to make it all swing like mad. Recommended.

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Saturday Review
Wilder Hobson : 11/16/1957

The atmosphere becomes warmly lyrical and introspective in Bass on Top by a superb improvising quartet with Paul Chambers, bass; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Hank Jones, piano; and Art Taylor, drums. So far as instrumentation is concerned, this is, of course, what is commonly known as a rhythm section, and there is indeed all the rhythm anyone could wish. But the emphasis is on the melodic gifts of the group, with a great deal of bowing by the remarkable Chambers. The rapport is complete throughout – all in all, this is one of the most gratifying records I have heard from the modern schools.

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Washington Post
Paul Sampson : 01/05/1958

Chambers has an LP all his own in Bass on Top. The remarkably proficient young bassist is equally at home in bowed and plucked solos, playing crisply with a big firm tone and imagination. His snapping, vibrant-plucked solo on You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To and his moaning bowed solo on Yesterdays are prime examples of his style. He gets splendid support from Kenny Burrell, Hank Jones and Art Taylor. This is the best LP featuring bass I’ve heard in months. Highly recommended.

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Down Beat : 12/26/1957
Ralph J. Gleason : 4.5 stars

On the basis of this LP alone, I would rank Chambers as one of the best bassists in jazz and certainly the most exciting performer to appear in recent years. He has the ability to keep the listener’s full attention while playing a solo; he thinks of interesting, intriguing, and beautifully logical things to play; he has excellent rhythm and supplies a fine pulse to whatever he is doing; he has the technique to do whatever he wants. The combination of these produces a remarkable bassist and on this LP he seems, to me at any rate, to be at this best.

Yesterdays, is a moving, provocative exhibition of Chambers ability to solo bowed, and when he goes into tempo at the latter part of the number, he reminds me of a bass version of Stuff Smith in spirit and feeling. The accompaniment is extraordinarily good on this album, too. Burrell is rapidly emerging as the new guitar talent. His solos and his accompaniment here are superb. I was particularly taken by the exchange of roles between bass and guitar on You’d Be So Nice. Hank Jones plays particularly well on this same track. Throughout Taylor drums sympathetically, which is to say he does not intrude but helps the organism grow.

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Liner Notes by Robert Levin

Until his tragic death from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-two, Jimmy Blanton held the distinction of being the “Bass on Top.” Blanton during his all too brief career with the fabulous Duke Ellington band (1939-1941) realized that the potential of the bass transcends its almost exclusive use as a rhythm section instrument and proceeded to extend his range of the bass by exploiting its then almost virgin qualities as a “horn-like” solo vehicle. The recorded solos he left behind testify to the remarkable results his genius produced and make evident the tremendous influence he has had on every modern jazz bassist who came after him. Oscar Pettiford, Percy Heath, Charlie Mingus, Ray Brown, Wendell Marshall, Milt Hinton, Al McKibbon and George Duvivier were the most outstanding of all the Blanton followers until Paul Chambers came on the scene.

Paul, the new “Bass on Top”, came to New York in the latter part of 1955 and since then has devoted the majority of his time to working with Miles Davis. Miles, the perfectionist, did well in choosing Paul as his regular bassist. Paul’s exciting bowed and pizzicato solos and his solid rhythmic line helped spark Miles’ quintet to the lofty heights it achieved in clubs and on records. Paul too has benefited greatly from his association with Miles. No musician with any degree of sensitivity can work night after night behind the “great man” without absorbing some of his profound musical wisdom and the results of Paul’s exposure to Miles can be heard in his music. He is a complete musician now with a deep and expansive conception that, combined with his always brilliant technical prowess, marks him as the bass player to watch, or rather, the bass player to listen to.

Miles is not the only musician to have acknowledged Paul’s exceptional talent. Paul won “New Star” honors in the “Musician’s Musician” poll in Leonard Feather’s “Encyclopedia of Jazz Yearbook” by receiving almost twice as many votes as his closest rival. Those artists who case their ballots for him were J.J. Johnson, Billy Taylor, Miles, Oscar Pettiford, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Ernie Wilkins, Randy Weston, Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Horace Silver, Conte Candoli, Herb Geller, Osie Johnson, George Wallington, Frank Wess, Frank Rosolino and Kai Winding.

Paul’s biological data can be found in the liners to his first two Blue Note LPs (Whims of Chambers, BLP 1534 and the Paul Chambers Quintet, BLP 1564) and he can also be heard on Blue Note with Kenny Burrell, BLP 1523 and BLP 1543; Lee Morgan, BLP 1541 and Hank Mobley, BLP 1540.

Kenny Burrell (who more than makes up for the absence of horns on these sides) is well on his way to becoming the “Guitar on Top.” Nat Hentoff in his Down Beat review of Kenny’s first Blue Note album (BLP 1523) said, “Burrell is easily one of the very best of the young guitarists in conception, time, soul and sound.” And Hentoff is not one to sing praises over a new musician unless he is thoroughly convinced of his abilities. Kenny was born in Detroit on July 31, 1931. An older brother, Bill, played bass and guitar and prompted his first interest in jazz. Kenny worked in local groups that included Thad Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Curtis Fuller, etc. before forming a combo of his own which he maintained until he left Detroit to go with Oscar Peterson in the Spring of 1955. He came to New York soon afterwards and like Paul (who is also from Detroit) has decided to stay.

When Hank Jones (another Michiganite) decided to make the “Apple” his home base he made a countless number of New York soloists very happy. Hank has a style and a way of comping that is similar to Tommy Flanagan. He is a pianist of impeccable taste who plays with an easy lyricism and has an intuitive way of “feeding” a soloist in a “just right” manner. For this he can best be described as a “musician’s musician”, but his own solos, always built on intelligent lines and always moving, are a delight for the listener as well. Hank was born on July 31, 1918 and is the elder brother of Thad and Elvin who have also made their mark in Blue Note annals. He came to New York in 1944, quite a few years prior to the sudden emergence of immigrators from the midwest in the middle fifties. He’s worked with people from a variety of schools; “Lips” Page, Andy Kirk, Billy Eckstine, Ella Fitzgerald, John Kirby, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Howard McGhee, Kenny Clarke, Don Byrd, Gigi Gryce, etc., and has fit in perfectly with each.

Art Taylor was dubbed “The Art of Drumming” by emcee Jack Lazare at the 1957 N.Y. Jazz Festival and the title is aptly fitting. “The Art of Drumming” has been learned well by A.T. who is surely one of the most proficient drummers in modern jazz. At this writing a member of the Jazz Lab Quintet, Art, who was born in New York on April 6, 1929, has played with Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins, Lou Donaldson, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Art Farmer, among many others.

In passing I would like to say that this record provides Chambers with more extended solo space than he, or to my knowledge any other bassist, has received before and many of Paul’s solo efforts on this record (which you will find to be highly enjoyable and educational – even if you don’t play bass) are, I am sure, destined to become valuable additions to the “collectors” library as are those of Blanton’s.

Side one begins with a mournful but not maudlin Yesterdays. Paul bows his way through three choruses with much feeling and Kenny embellishing in a sensitive, pretty fashion, supplies the discreet accompaniment along with Hank and Art. It is Paul’s extremely gifted handling of a bow that, as much as anything else, lifts him above the class of the average bass player. He can be likened to a Koussevitzky in this respect, but certainly no one else in jazz.

You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To bounces along in a neat, finger-snapping tempo. Paul, Kenny, Hank and Paul again, are the soloists.

Charlie Parker‘s Chasin’ The Bird provides solo space for the entire quartet. Burrell opens, stating the theme over an excursion of his own. Jones follows in a light, groovy mood that is characteristic of him. Burrell returns and Taylor succeeds him before Kenny and Paul go back to the theme.

The beautiful Dear Old Stockholm[ (a Swedish folk song added to the jazz repertoire by Miles and recoded by him, along with Yesterdays, on BLP 1501) that opens the second side is, for me, the most provocative rendition in this wonderful set. It is mainly a vehicle for Burrell whose statements sandwich those of Chambers and Jones. Each of the solos are bright and cohesive and stick close to the melody, managing to retain the essentially plaintive air of the tune, while the many “breaks”, spotted at intervals during and, as a bridge, between the solos, lend an unusual, ominous quality.

The Theme, used as a “sign-off” item by Miles, is a piece that Paul has no doubt become quite familiar with. His bowed soli is swinging and imaginative and leads into a swift romp by Kenny. Hank comes on next with Art and Paull (still bowed) following him with a set of exchanges before the close.

As an encore, the pretty Confessin’ has Paul in solo, save for a brief but pertinent bit by Hank, with the remained of the group assisting in a rhythmic capacity. Art Taylor’s exclamation, “Crazy, Chambers!” at the end of the set is a summation of the brilliance of the entire album.

It is sincerely believe in these quarters that Paul Chambers has earned the “Bass on Top” title and to close with a gang of superlatives might seem in order here. But may I suggest instead that you pick up this side – listen to it and use your own superlatives. They will come quickly and easily.