Phineas Newborn, Jr., Paul Chambers & Roy Haynes' Magic Moment

Why 'We Three' is one of jazz's pristine one-off encounters

Aug 12, 2025

Hi music lovers!

I’ve been a huge fan of We Three, a one-time-only meeting of pianist Phineas Newborn, Jr., bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Roy Haynes recorded in 1958, ever since I picked up a vinyl copy 25 or 26 years ago. There is a deep simpatico between these three jazz giants and a feeling of perfection throughout the recording. In the below essay, I try to pinpoint some of the reasons why We Three feels special. Of course, when the music is this good, there are other factors that can’t be explained or even named. With that proviso out of the way, I do hope you enjoy what I’ve written and will let me know what you think of the special chemistry between Newman, Jr., Chambers and Haynes.

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Newborn, Jr., one of several jazz musicians to emerge out of Memphis in the fifties, was a formidable combination of technique, and harmonic and rhythmic daring. In other words, he was riskier than Oscar Peterson and funkier than Bud Powell. One of his early-sixties sessions for Contemporary, The Great Jazz Piano of Phineas Newborn, Jr., half with bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Milt Turner, and the other half with bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes, is a dazzling example of Newborn, Jr.’s playing.

It opens with his take of Powell’s ‘Celia’ as the pianist barrels through chorus after chorus, notes piling up on each other, a cadence of improvisation that never stops. On Bobby Timmons’ ‘This Here,’ he switches between the bass line and answering chordal pattern, and the main thematic phrase so seamlessly that one may be forgiven for being certain that the effect is the result of overdubbing rather than Newborn, Jr.’s fleet interplay between his left and right hands.

But what made these expressions of supreme mastery of his instrument meaningful was his adventurousness. He could suddenly detour into passages that leaped outside of the rhythm and harmony of whatever composition he was playing as on the second solo chorus of his ‘Theme for Basie’ or especially the fourth chorus of his rapid deconstruction of Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson’s ‘Four.’ Newborn, Jr. was an exciting player.

It would not be a stretch to crown Paul Chambers, part of the explosion of jazz players who came to New York from Detroit, as the jazz bassist of the latter part of the fifties into the sixties. His presence on a substantial number of the historically important sessions from the era as well as anchoring successive iterations of Miles Davis’ working group has given his very name on the front of an album cover an imprimatur of quality.

Like Newborn, Jr., Chambers’ playing could inspire ecstasy. Think of the moment he enters on John Coltrane’s ‘Countdown’ with a walking beat that would be accurately described as a sprint or his bowed solo on the electrifying version of ‘Billy Boy’ on Davis’ Milestones with Red Garland and Philly Joe Jones. Chambers, maybe more than any other musician, symbolized both the promise of jazz in the early-LP era and the personal costs and demons that many of its musicians endured (Newman, Jr. didn’t escape these either). The bassist died young at 33.

Haynes was four months shy of 100 when he passed away last November, one of the last living links to the bebop revolution. He was dapper both sartorially—in the early sixties, he was honoured by Esquire as a sharp-dressed man—and musically—his snare and tom hits had a clipped, crisp sound befitting his moniker as Snap Crackle.

On ‘Shulie a Bop,’ which opens Sarah Vaughan’s Swingin’ Easy, collecting her trio sides from 1954 and 1957, the singer introduces Haynes for his solo spot by saying his first name and then pausing before saying his last name. Indeed, the pause is part of what made Haynes such an interesting player, the lack of any decay in his sound created these short moments of silence as he moved around the drum kit.

He was also perhaps the drummer among those who gained prominence in the fifties who was most attuned to backing a singer. That is no surprise as he had a long musical association with Vaughan. Their simpatico is front and centre on Swingin’ Easy with, for example, the stray tom hit as Vaughan sings “I felt a bump” on ‘Polka Dots and Moonbeams’ and the recurring brush dance throughout ‘Pennies from Heaven.’ Haynes was equally sensitive backing Anita O’Day on the Gary McFarland-led All the Sad Young Men from 1962.

Newborn, Jr., Chambers and Haynes: three signature stylists who prior to recording We Three on November 14, 1958 at Rudy Van Gelder’s Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, had only played together at the Five Spot on the occasional Monday. This fleeting familiarity is not really remarkable, especially in jazz, and I suppose that the depth of the connection that Newborn Jr., Chambers and Haynes so quickly made is not any more so. But there is a quality about We Three, a feeling of that divine current that ennobles it as beyond a run-of-the-mill meeting of musicians.

Part of it is related to the material selected for it. There are four harmonically and melodically rich compositions, a blues at its most elemental and a not particularly well-known ballad. This most temporary of trios had ample substance to sink their teeth into.

The opener, Ray Bryant’s ‘Reflection,’ starts with an Afro-Cuban flourish by Haynes that moves into a potent counterpoint between Newborn, Jr. and Haynes, and Chambers. The theme has a wistful flavour with a poignant contrast in the bridge that leads to the turnaround for a firm, final A section. Newborn, Jr.’s solo establishes his general approach to them throughout We Three. The first chorus is sedate yet full of thoughtful and bold ideas. The second and final chorus is where the pianist opens up his bag of tricks. On ‘Reflection,’ they are unearthed through a burst of two-handed asides that come at the end of the first A section and the soulful line that moves to the outskirts of the harmony on the final A.

On most of We Three, that’s all Newborn, Jr. gets for his solos: two choruses and he is out. He makes the most of them. On ‘Sugar Ray,’ the only original on the album, written by the pianist in salute to Sugar Ray Robinson (for a sense of what the boxer meant to the Black community in the fifties, give a read of Marshall Bowden’s insightful essay on Miles Davis’ Complete Jack Johnson Sessions box set). The pianist’s improvisation is another compact wonder. It’s funky at the start and labyrinthian by the end—dig the ringing chords that close out the second bridge. On this and ‘Reflection,’ Haynes’ punctuations on the themes as well as the sizzle he gets on the hi-hat further the earthy feel.

If Newborn, Jr. brought the flash and Haynes a controlled virtuosity, Chambers was the cool anchor offering an unflagging walking beat and, as on ‘Sugar Ray,’ soloing with long lines full of lyricism.

In his liner notes to the album, critic Ira Gitler notes how Newborn, Jr. had tempered his ability to seemingly play the whole piano at once after he arrived in New York in 1956. Indeed, the only time Newman, Jr. pours it on here is on the solo choruses that open and close ‘Solitaire,’ first recorded by Tony Bennett in 1951 and on which Bennett reins in his occasionally over-ripe technique at the time. It’s a song with a broad melody so Newman, Jr.’s romantic approach makes sense. When Chambers and Haynes enter, he lightens the embellishments on his repeat of the theme. Chambers follows with a chorus that underlines the sensuous modulation of the bridge. Selecting something unfamiliar for the album’s ballad is one of the many astute repertoire choices that was made for We Three.

Avery Parrish’s ‘After Hours’ is the inverse, a well-loved textbook definition of the blues. Eleven months prior to We Three, Dizzy Gillespie recorded a lengthy, gutbucket version with Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins for Sonny Side Up. Newman, Jr., Chambers and Haynes go at it for about as long and about as low down as Gillespie did. Here, ‘After Hours’ is Phineas Newborn, Jr.’s show. His extended opening solo is a grand statement of the blues. Each chorus builds on the previous while neither being mired in clichés nor trying to disguise blues form. As with the best of the pianist’s improvisions, there are moments a’plenty of derring-do. His dances along the harmonic edge on the third. Subtly puts his foot on the ignition on the fifth as Haynes switches to double time. Does a call and response on the sixth and gets lost on a trilling passage on the seventh.

After Chambers takes a solo, there are more pianistic adventures. Newborn, Jr. wails on the keyboard—never to the point of ostentatiousness—than switches back to call and response. ‘After Hours’ is a pure example of why hearing Newman, Jr. play is active listening. There is so much to take in. In the years to come, there would be even more.

We Three concludes with a return to the succinct approach with which it opened. ‘Sneakin’ Around,’ another Bryant composition, had a catchy theme and a nice modernist touch in the bridge that Newman, Jr. and Chambers dig into for their solos. There’s also the neat touch of the performance fading out as Haynes repeats his opening, stop-and-start pattern.

The album ends with a flag waver: Tadd Dameron’s ‘Our Delight’—I told you the tune selection here was superb. The highlight here is Haynes trading fours with Newman, Jr. and then with Chambers, always with that preternatural sense of control, nothing ever out of place and the final piece of evidence that We Three is a document of a group that could have easily been a working unit. The same feeling is felt on an album recorded a month later with Bill Evans, Sam Jones and Philly Joe Jones, Everybody Digs Bill Evans. Like We Three, there’s that extra ingredient, whether one chooses to attribute it to God or serendipity or brotherly camaraderie or something else, that turned an one-off encounter into a magic moment.

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