Which jazz musician played bass on Miles Davis’s 1959 album Kind of Blue?

Paul Chambers played bass on Miles Davis’s 1959 album Kind of Blue.

Paul Chambers was the bassist on Kind of Blue, recorded by Miles Davis’s sextet in 1959. The other principal musicians were John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley on tenor and alto saxophones, Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly on piano, and Jimmy Cobb on drums.

The album’s modal approach gave the musicians relatively open harmonic frameworks for improvisation. Its five tracks include “So What,” “Freddie Freeloader,” “Blue in Green,” “All Blues,” and “Flamenco Sketches.” Chambers’s bass lines provide the rhythmic and harmonic foundation beneath the famous trumpet, saxophone, and piano solos.

A common mistake is to name Ron Carter or Jimmy Garrison, both important bassists who worked with Miles Davis or John Coltrane in later periods. Neither appears on Kind of Blue. Chambers was a central member of Davis’s first great quintet and also recorded extensively as a leader and sideman before his death in 1969.