The Soft Land Of Make Believe

Paul Chambers's name is stamped on a mountain of hard-bop sessions, the immovable anchor of the music. Yet when Kenny Burrell chose him for his 1956 debut as a leader, the reason was almost anticlimactic: "Paul was my student." In Detroit, the definitive bass had been the guitarist's pupil.

Kenny Burrell cut his guitar parts on Blue Note sessions across the 1950s and 60s. Decades later those same master tapes were chopped up and rebuilt into 2021's Deciphering the Message, crediting him on a brand-new record he never actually played a note for.