"It was the summer of 1986. A friend of mine and I were sitting in a New York City jazz establishment called Fat Tuesday's. The hour became late and the assembled Saturday night audience grew anxious. Most had come to see guitar wizard John Scofield. We had come to experience the drummer.
He was a young star rising, a guy who the musicians were hip to but the public was yet to be aware of. He was being touted as a musical genius, the next Cobham. He was Weckl and Rich rolled into one. That's what we had heard about Dennis Chambers and now we were going to see him play. What we saw was very difficult to describe. Omar Hakim saw Dennis Chambers play that same week and said of his performance simply: "Scary!"
Big City, Dennis Chambers' first solo album, is a testament to what was said about him several years ago with one difference, now he is frightening. Big City takes the listener through a gamut of jazz style inflections, signature applications, musical dynamics, emotions, attitudes and interpretations that only Chambers can provide. You can smell the music of New York on this disc.
When it is all said and done, Dennis Chambers will be recalled as one of the greats. We, at Pearl, are proud to have produced his first album and elated our association with Dennis has come to this."