"Eastbound" is a hard-driving Kenny Drew composition that closes the 1956 album Chambers' Music with blazing energy. The 32-bar AABA form in C minor moves at a blistering tempo approaching 270 beats per minute, creating a thrilling showcase for the trio's collective virtuosity. John Coltrane leads with three tenor saxophone choruses of relentless intensity, his lines cascading through the minor-key changes with the fierce determination that was becoming his trademark. Kenny Drew follows with two piano choruses that match Coltrane's energy, his bebop vocabulary deployed with crisp precision and harmonic daring. Philly Joe Jones takes two drum choruses that showcase his legendary combination of technical brilliance and musical intelligence, his solo maintaining the compositional structure while exploring the full dynamic and timbral range of the drum kit. The minor-key tonality gives the performance a darker, more urgent quality than the album's other up-tempo tracks, and the combined intensity of three exceptional musicians pushing each other at extreme tempos creates one of the most exciting performances in the hard bop catalog. The album closes on this note of maximum intensity, a fitting conclusion to a recording that demonstrated Paul Chambers's worthiness as a bandleader.
