Horace Silver · I know the classics

Beyond the classics: Silver

You know the famous Silver records. This path goes around them: the sideman dates of 1954 to 1957 where he helped shape hard bop, the Messengers live and on their last record together, the quintet records people skip, and the turns his band took in the 1960s.

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Rollins tunes, with Miles Davis
Bags Groove Miles Davis · Prestige PRLP 7109 · 1957
Silver plays on only one side of this record, and it's the side to start with. On June 29, 1954, at Van Gelder's in Hackensack, Miles Davis brought in Sonny Rollins, then 23, who supplied three new tunes, "Airegin," "Oleo" and "Doxy." All three became standards. Silver, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke were the rhythm section, the same men behind Davis most of that spring. The title tune on the other side, from Christmas Eve 1954, has Milt Jackson and Thelonious Monk instead. It opens this path because it puts Silver in the middle of the most important small-group work of 1954, as the pianist the best players called.
Start with
- Airegin
- Oleo
- Doxy
"Airegin" is Nigeria spelled backwards. On "Oleo," Davis plays with a Harmon mute, a sound that became a lasting part of his style. Listen under the horns on all three: Silver is the only pianist on this side, and his comping is the one constant from tune to tune. Then try the title tune on side one to hear Monk in the same chair.
In the band
Sonny Rollins · tenor sax
Sonny Rollins grew up in Harlem and had recorded with Bud Powell, Fats Navarro and Davis before he turned 21. These three tunes were among the first of his to catch on. Late in 1954 he stepped away from the scene for a while, then came back in late 1955 in the Clifford Brown and Max Roach quintet. In 1956 he made Saxophone Colossus, and he kept performing until 2012.
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Kenny Dorham's Latin date
Afro-Cuban Kenny Dorham · Blue Note BLP 1535 · 1957
Early in 1955 the men on Silver's records were busy on each other's dates too. Kenny Dorham's first Blue Note session as leader came on January 30, 1955, a sextet with Hank Mobley, Cecil Payne, Silver, Percy Heath and Art Blakey. On March 29 he came back with a bigger band: J.J. Johnson, Oscar Pettiford, and Carlos "Patato" Valdés on conga, whom Dizzy Gillespie had told him about. Leonard Feather says it was Dorham's work on Silver's dates that won him the contract. Here Silver is part of a Latin experiment, the kind of rhythm that kept turning up in his own writing for the rest of his career.
Start with
- Afrodisia
- Lotus Flower
- K.D.'s Motion
"Lotus Flower" is slow and pretty, with an introduction by Silver and a short, sad solo from Johnson. On "Afrodisia," a new Dorham tune, Feather hears Gillespie in the theme. "K.D.'s Motion," from the January sextet, is a medium blues: Dorham takes four choruses, then Payne, Mobley and Silver.
In the band
Kenny Dorham · trumpet
Kenny Dorham, born in Texas in 1924, had toured with Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine and Lionel Hampton, then spent about two years in Charlie Parker's quintet. Feather calls him the man every band called when it needed a trumpet. He was the first trumpeter in the Jazz Messengers, and in 1956 he led his own band, the Jazz Prophets. In the 1960s he helped the young Joe Henderson find his feet in New York. He died in 1972.
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The Messengers, live downtown
At the Cafe Bohemia Volume 1 The Jazz Messengers · Blue Note BLP 1507 · 1956
On Wednesday, November 23, 1955, Alfred Lion recorded the Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia in Greenwich Village: Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Silver, Doug Watkins and Art Blakey. It was still a band of equals, led on paper by Silver or Blakey depending on the date, and this record and its companion volume were the first issued under the Messengers name. Blue Note taped four sets. If you know the studio sides, this is the same band with room to stretch, in front of a crowd. Silver told Leonard Feather what they were after: "We want people to understand what we're doing."
Start with
- Soft Winds
- Minor's Holiday
- Prince Albert
"Soft Winds," from the old Benny Goodman Sextet, stretches past 12 minutes into something Feather hears as easygoing and rocking. Dorham's "Minor's Holiday" is faster and longer here than on his own record. "Prince Albert" is Dorham's line over the chords of "All the Things You Are." Nat Hentoff, in Down Beat, praised the rhythm section and thought Mobley had too much of the floor.
In the band
Doug Watkins · bass
Doug Watkins, born in Detroit in 1934, was 21 here and an original Messenger. He left the band with Silver in 1956 and played in Silver's first quintet; Silver later wrote that both were tired of the drug problems in the band and of police searches on the road. That same year he was on Sonny Rollins's Saxophone Colossus. He died in a car accident in Arizona in 1962, at 27.
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Last date with the Messengers
The Jazz Messengers Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers · Columbia CL 897 · 1956
In the spring of 1956 the Messengers signed with Columbia, a far bigger label than Blue Note. Donald Byrd had taken Dorham's place. Over two days in April and May at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York, with George Avakian producing, they made this, the band's first studio album under the name. It was also Silver's last record with the Messengers. Within months he had left, and Blakey kept the name. Mobley wrote most of the originals, and Silver brought two. It's the end of the partnership, and the start of a new tune that Silver would keep returning to.
Start with
- Nica's Dream
- Ecaroh
- Infra-Rae
Silver wrote "Nica's Dream" in 1954 for the jazz patron Pannonica de Koenigswarter, and this is its first recording. Its A sections ride a Latin pattern, and the bridge switches between backbeat accents and four-beat swing. "Ecaroh," Horace spelled backwards, comes from his first trio date, now arranged for the full band. "Infra-Rae" is one of Mobley's.
In the band
Art Blakey · drums
Art Blakey was 36 and a veteran of Fletcher Henderson's and Billy Eckstine's bands. When Silver left, Blakey kept the Messengers name and made the band a school for young players: Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and Wynton Marsalis were among the many who passed through it. He led it, with one new lineup after another, until he died in 1990.
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In the room with Coltrane
Whims of Chambers Paul Chambers · Blue Note BLP 1534 · 1956
Silver's sideman work didn't stop when he started his own band. On September 21, 1956, he was at Van Gelder's for the bassist Paul Chambers's first Blue Note date as leader, alongside two of Chambers's bandmates from the Miles Davis Quintet, John Coltrane and Philly Joe Jones, plus Donald Byrd and Kenny Burrell. Seven tunes, all used, and not every one uses the whole band: one is a trio, and the title tune leaves out the horns. It's here for the company: Silver beside Coltrane a few months before Coltrane's own career took off. Scott Yanow wrote that it would be worth having even without him.
Start with
- Omicron
- Nita
- Just For The Love
Byrd's "Omicron" has an introduction and a coda in 6/8 and a plucked solo from the leader. Coltrane wrote "Nita," and Leonard Feather singles out Jones's drum solo on it. "Just For The Love," also Coltrane's, closes the record, and all six players take a turn. Listen for how Silver's comping sits under two very different horn players.
In the band
John Coltrane · tenor sax
John Coltrane was 29 and had been in the Miles Davis Quintet for about a year. He wrote two of the tunes here, "Nita" and "Just For The Love." In 1957 he got free of heroin, played with Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot and made his own Blue Note record. From there his music moved fast, through Giant Steps and A Love Supreme, until his death in 1967 at 40.
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A bigger band for Atlantic
Plenty, Plenty Soul Milt Jackson · Atlantic LP 1269 · 1957
Silver worked for other labels too. In January 1957 he played on both of Milt Jackson's dates for Atlantic in New York. On January 5 it was a sextet with Joe Newman on trumpet, Lucky Thompson on tenor, Oscar Pettiford and Connie Kay. On January 7 it was a nine-piece band playing Quincy Jones's arrangements, with Cannonball Adderley, Frank Foster and Sahib Shihab among the horns and Art Blakey on drums. It's the largest group Silver plays in on this path, and a chance to hear his blues feeling fit inside a writer's charts. Scott Yanow at AllMusic says the dates still sound fresh and enthusiastic decades later.
Start with
- Plenty, Plenty Soul
- Sermonette
- Blues At Twilight
"Plenty, Plenty Soul," credited to Jackson and Jones, runs over nine minutes with the full band. "Sermonette" is a Cannonball Adderley tune, though it comes from the smaller date without him, and "Blues At Twilight" is a Jones tune for the sextet. Compare how much space the piano gets in the two settings.
In the band
Quincy Jones · trumpet
Quincy Jones was 23, a trumpeter turned arranger who had come up in Lionel Hampton's band and had written for Clark Terry, Dinah Washington and many others. He arranged the three tunes for the larger group here. Later in 1957 he moved to Paris to work for Barclay Records and study with Nadia Boulanger. He went on to film scores and, much later, produced Michael Jackson's Thriller.
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A reunion with vibes
Hank Mobley and His All Stars Hank Mobley · Blue Note BLP 1544 · 1957
A week after the Atlantic dates, on Sunday, January 13, 1957, Silver was back at Van Gelder's for Hank Mobley. With Doug Watkins and Art Blakey, that made four of the five Messengers who had played the Cafe Bohemia in 1955, months after the band split. The guest was Milt Jackson on vibes. Mobley brought five tunes of his own, and all five made the record. Leonard Feather framed it as a reply to a newspaper critic who said jazz had lost its spontaneity: musicians blowing on chord changes at a steady tempo, the way most lasting jazz had been made.
Start with
- Reunion
- Lower Stratosphere
- Ultramarine
"Reunion" has a downward line that Feather compares to "Lover," played by tenor and vibes in unison. "Lower Stratosphere" is a blues, with Silver at his funkiest, Feather says, and an agile solo from Watkins. "Ultramarine," the long one, is in a minor key at a medium tempo and ends on an odd repeated major chord.
In the band
Milt Jackson · vibes
Milt Jackson, from Detroit, played vibes in Dizzy Gillespie's bands of the 1940s and had been a Blue Note name since the late 1940s. By now he was best known as the star soloist of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Feather thought he rarely got to swing this freely in those years. He and Silver had made records together since 1954, and Jackson kept playing in and out of the MJQ until his death in 1999.
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The working band, 1957
The Stylings of Silver Horace Silver · Blue Note BLP 1562 · 1957
By 1957 other bands were playing Silver's tunes. He had led his own quintet since August 1956, and on Wednesday, May 8, 1957, at Van Gelder's in Hackensack, he brought it in: Art Farmer on trumpet, Hank Mobley on tenor, Teddy Kotick on bass and Louis Hayes on drums. It was a working band, not a pickup group, and Silver wrote five of the six tunes. He told Nat Hentoff, in the original notes, that he reworked tunes over time and didn't try to be different for its own sake. Dom Cerulli gave it five stars in Down Beat. Soon after, Mobley left to join Max Roach.
Start with
- Soulville
- No Smokin'
- The Back Beat
"No Smokin'" is fast and in a minor key; Silver explained that to smoke, in the slang of the day, meant to cook. "The Back Beat" gets its name from the rhythm section's back-beat figure against the melody, and Billboard picked it as the track to play. "Soulville" is a minor blues whose form, Silver said, came from Lester Young's "D.B. Blues."
In the band
Art Farmer · trumpet
Art Farmer, born in Iowa in 1928 and raised in Phoenix with his twin brother, the bassist Addison Farmer, had been in Silver's quintet from the start. Whitney Balliett found him strained on "No Smokin'," but he was known above all for a warm, singing sound. In 1959 he formed the Jazztet with Benny Golson, later played mostly flugelhorn, and from the late 1960s made his home in Vienna.
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Further, from home ground
Further Explorations Horace Silver · Blue Note BLP 1589 · 1958
By early 1958 Silver's quintet had settled. Art Farmer and Louis Hayes were still there, Teddy Kotick was on bass, and Cliff Jordan had come in on tenor in what Leonard Feather calls a trade with Max Roach, who took Hank Mobley. On Monday, January 13, 1958, at Van Gelder's, they ran through 21 takes and kept six tunes, five of them Silver's. Feather puts Silver among the musicians who explore by digging deeper into their own style rather than wandering sideways, and the title says the same. Steve Leggett at AllMusic called it a solid, even striking outing.
Start with
- Melancholy Mood
- Moonrays
- The Outlaw
"The Outlaw" is built on a 13-bar line played twice, then a 10-bar channel, a 16-bar vamp and a two-bar break before Jordan's solo. "Melancholy Mood" is a trio ballad in seven-bar phrases, with Kotick bowing. "Moonrays," nearly 11 minutes, has the horns in two-part harmony over pedal points; Silver called it a sort of walking ballad.
In the band
Clifford Jordan · tenor sax
Clifford Jordan came from Chicago's South Side and learned under Captain Walter Dyett at DuSable High School. Silver had jammed with him in Chicago and helped bring him to Blue Note. He had replaced Sonny Rollins in Max Roach's group before joining Silver in the summer of 1957. Later he toured Europe with Charles Mingus in 1964, and he led bands of his own until his death in 1993.
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What he heard in Japan
The Tokyo Blues The Horace Silver Quintet · Blue Note BLP 4110 · 1962
Silver toured Japan in early 1962, and the trip gave him this record, made at Van Gelder's in Englewood Cliffs on July 13 and 14. The band is the classic one, Blue Mitchell, Junior Cook and Gene Taylor, except at the drums, where Joe Harris, credited as John Harris Jr., sat in for Roy Brooks. The titles all point east: "Too Much Sake," "Sayonara Blues," "Ah! So." One tune, "Cherry Blossom," is by the pianist Ronnell Bright. It shows Silver taking in a new place and turning it into his own groove, a habit that would lead him to Brazil and back to his father's islands.
Start with
- The Tokyo Blues
- Sayanora Blues
- Cherry Blossom
The title tune and "Sayonara Blues" come from the first day; "Sayonara Blues" runs over 12 minutes, the longest piece on the record. "Cherry Blossom" is a trio piece, with the horns sitting out, and "Too Much Sake" opens the original LP. Listen for how the band treats the eastern titles: the grooves underneath are still Silver's.
In the band
Blue Mitchell · trumpet
Blue Mitchell, from Miami, had passed through New York in 1952 and made his first records there, then toured with Earl Bostic. Cannonball Adderley steered Riverside to him, and he joined Silver in 1958. He stayed until the band broke up in 1964, then led a group of Silver alumni, with Chick Corea on piano, before touring with Ray Charles and John Mayall. He died in Los Angeles in 1979.
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The last full album of an era
Silver's Serenade The Horace Silver Quintet · Blue Note BLP 4131 · 1963
Recorded at Van Gelder's on May 7 and 8, 1963, with Roy Brooks back on drums, this is the last whole album by the Mitchell and Cook quintet; their final sessions with Silver ended up spread across his next record. Five Silver tunes, the title piece over nine minutes. It sits in the shadow of what came just after, and that's why it's here: the band at the end of a five-year run, sure of itself and of the book. The critics were split. AllMusic gave it four stars; the Penguin Guide and the Rolling Stone guide gave three.
Start with
- Silver's Serenade
- Let's Get To The Nitty Gritty
- The Dragon Lady
Start with the title piece, which opens the record and is its longest track at over nine minutes. Then try "Let's Get To The Nitty Gritty" and "The Dragon Lady." This is the band you've heard on the earlier records, five years on: listen for how easily the two horns move together in the themes.
In the band
Gene Taylor · bass
Gene Taylor, born in Toledo in 1929, started out in Detroit and held the bass chair in Silver's quintet from 1958 to 1963. Afterwards he went with Blue Mitchell's group, then toured and recorded with Nina Simone from 1966 to 1968; he wrote "Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)" after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, and Simone recorded it. Later he worked with Judy Collins and taught in New York public schools.
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The underrated one
The Jody Grind Horace Silver Quintet/Sextet · Blue Note BLP 4250 · 1967
By late 1966 Joe Henderson had gone too, and Silver's band was Woody Shaw on trumpet, Tyrone Washington on tenor, Larry Ridley on bass and Roger Humphries on drums. Two dates at Van Gelder's in Englewood Cliffs, November 2 and 23, 1966, gave six Silver tunes: three by the quintet, three with James Spaulding added on alto and flute. It reached No. 8 on Billboard's jazz chart. Steve Huey at AllMusic calls it the most underappreciated of Silver's albums, and one of his most challenging groove records. It's a good place to end: Silver still changing his band, and his sound, ten years into leading it.
Start with
- The Jody Grind
- Mary Lou
- Mexican Hip Dance
"The Jody Grind" and "Mexican Hip Dance" come from the quintet date. On "Mary Lou," from the sextet date, Spaulding takes a flute solo, a new color on a Silver record. Listen for how the three horns of the sextet tracks fill out his writing, and compare them with the leaner quintet sides.
In the band
James Spaulding · alto sax
James Spaulding, born in Indianapolis in 1937, spent 1957 to 1961 in Sun Ra's band before becoming one of Blue Note's busiest sidemen of the 1960s, on records by Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Duke Pearson and Stanley Turrentine. Later he played with Max Roach, Randy Weston and Woody Shaw, in the World Saxophone Quartet, and in the Duke Ellington Orchestra under Mercer Ellington.
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