Horace Silver

Two sessions, November 13, 1954 and February 6, 1955, same five men both days at Van Gelder's in Hackensack. The 12-inch LP that gathers them came out in 1956 by folding together two ten-inch records, Volumes 3 and 4 of the Horace Silver Quintet. Silver, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Doug Watkins and Art Blakey. Silver got the leader billing, most likely because he wrote seven of the eight tunes, but this band was a cooperative under joint leadership and Blakey was nobody's sideman here.

"The Preacher" almost did not happen. Alfred Lion did not want to record it, calling it too old-timey, and by Silver's own account in his autobiography Let's Get to the Nitty Gritty he pushed back hard enough to threaten stopping the session unless Lion gave him time to write a replacement. Lion lost that argument. The tune went out as a single in 1956, 45-1630, backed with "Doodlin'," and it turned into one of the few records that told everybody at once what hard bop was going to sound like.

The LP does not run in session order. It opens on "Room 608" and "Creepin' In" and holds "The Preacher" back for the second side, which is better sequencing than the chronological version would have given. Blakey plays like the building is on fire, and Silver answers him with those short blocky gospel-shaped figures nobody else was using at a piano in 1954. Dorham and Mobley are good and they know when to stand aside and let the rhythm section be the story.

Do not go shopping for a stereo original. BST 81518 is electronically rechanneled fake stereo, flagged as such by jazzdisco, so mono is the only honest way to own this one. The release month is unsettled as well, with Wikipedia saying October 1956 while Discogs and Deep Groove Mono both say July, so the year is all anybody should print. Five stars. Most of what the next twenty years of this music did is sitting somewhere in these eight tracks.

November 10, 1956, one session, and the band is essentially last year's Jazz Messengers with Louis Hayes in Blakey's chair and Donald Byrd in Dorham's. Hank Mobley and Doug Watkins stay put. The jacket reads 6 Pieces Of Silver with the numeral and bills it to The Horace Silver Quintet, and the spelled-out title you see on CD editions arrived later. Seven tracks, six of them Silver originals, which is presumably where the title comes from, although no source says so and I am not going to put words in his mouth.

Two of the seven are piano trio performances. Byrd and Mobley sit out "Shirl" and "For Heaven's Sake" completely, per Wikipedia and jazzdisco; Discogs credits the horns with no qualifier and is the weaker source there. That leaves "Senor Blues" as the one everybody remembers, a six-eight blues that Scott Yanow says officially put Silver on the map and that Blue Note worked twice as a single, first as the 1956 instrumental on 45-1655 and then again two years later.

Those 1958 lyrics were, by his account in a 2004 DownBeat interview, the first he had ever written, and Bill Henderson sang them on 45-1710. Worth knowing before you buy a CD: the June 1958 session that produced the vocal version and "Tippin'" is bonus material made by a different band, Junior Cook in Mobley's chair and Gene Taylor on bass. It has no real claim on the album. Neither does the pseudo-stereo BST 81539, which is another rechanneled fake.

Yanow calls this the first classic Horace Silver Quintet album, and I would put the weight on first rather than classic. It is a very good record with one great tune on it, and the band that would make the great records is still a personnel change or two away. The release year carries the usual split, 1956 from Wikipedia, AllMusic and jazzdisco against a January 1957 first pressing on Discogs, with Billboard noticing it in February 1957.

This is the one the story usually skips over. January 31, 1959, eight tunes cut in a single day at Hackensack, and the first appearance on record of the quintet people mean when they say the Horace Silver Quintet: Blue Mitchell, Junior Cook, Gene Taylor, Louis Hayes. Cook, Taylor and Hayes were already aboard, playing Newport the previous July with Louis Smith on trumpet. Mitchell is the new man, on loan by courtesy of Riverside, where he was signed as a leader in his own right.

Eight tracks, all Silver originals, all published by his own Ecaroh Music, and Blue Note pulled three singles from it in 1959 covering six of the eight titles. That is a heavy push for a label that usually managed one per album. "Sweet Stuff" is the trio track and the only one, though jazzdisco's take markings hint at a second: All About Jazz describes only "Sweet Stuff" as a trio arrangement, and Blue Note's own 1976 Trio Sides anthology takes that one and leaves "You Happened My Way" where it was.

Two things for the record shop. The original stereo number is BST 4008 with four digits, which is not a typo: Blue Note's earliest stereo editions ran short numbers, the five-digit form does not start until 84015, and jazzdisco's BST 84008 is the later renumbering. And this was one of only seven titles Van Gelder remastered for stereo in 1959, five of which shipped in leftover mono jackets with a gold STEREO sticker pasted on the front. If your copy looks like that, your copy is right.

It is also one of the last Silver dates cut at Hackensack. Van Gelder moved to Englewood Cliffs later that year and the next album on this page was already made in the new room, which you can hear if you play them back to back. Four stars instead of five because the writing sits a notch below what arrived seven months later, but as a document of a band walking in and instantly sounding like itself, this is hard to beat.

Three sessions, two configurations, one of the best records Blue Note ever put out. August 29 and 30, 1959 gave the five quintet tracks. September 13 gave two piano trio performances, "The St. Vitus Dance" and "Melancholy Mood." The jacket says so up front by billing the record to The Horace Silver Quintet & Trio, which is a kind of honesty album covers do not often bother with. It is also the first Silver album made at Englewood Cliffs rather than Hackensack.

"Sister Sadie" and the title track got the singles, 45-1750 and 45-1751, and they are the two everybody quotes. The record is wider than its reputation, though. "Peace" runs 6:02, "Sister Sadie" 6:19 and "Melancholy Mood" 7:10, so anyone telling you this is an album of tight three-minute jabs has not looked at the label. "Peace" in particular is the quietest thing Silver had written to that point, and it is a large part of why the album survives repeat playing.

"Melancholy Mood" is a remake and the jacket admits it, printing the title as Melancholy Mood (New Version). Silver had cut the tune as a trio piece on Further Explorations in January 1958 with Teddy Kotick on bass. Ralph J. Gleason reviewed the album in DownBeat in March 1960, called it lovely and full of fire and brimstone, and wrote that there is an esprit de combo here which is great to find. The Penguin Guide puts it in the Core Collection.

Unlike the two 1950s titles above it, this one has a genuine 1959 stereo twin in BST 84017 rather than a rechanneled fake, so a stereo copy is worth owning. Paula Donohue drew the cover, Reid Miles designed it, Ira Gitler wrote the notes. Ignore AllMusic on the session data: it drops the August 30 date entirely, places the sessions in New York, and lists a Billy Mitchell on tenor who was never in the room. Steve Huey is right that "The Baghdad Blues" points at where Silver's writing went next.

July 8 and 9, 1960, and the drum chair changes hands. Louis Hayes played the 1959 records; Roy Brooks arrives here and stays through Doin' the Thing and into the 1963 half of Song for My Father. Mitchell, Cook and Taylor are unchanged. Two tunes failed outright on the first day: "Me And My Baby" and "Nica's Dream" were both attempted on July 8, rejected, and re-cut successfully the following afternoon with everybody presumably a little grumpier about it.

"Nica's Dream" is the one that mattered, and it closes the record. The tune came out of Silver's Jazz Messengers years and had been circulating a while, though whether this is the first Silver-led version issued commercially is a question I did not settle, so I am not going to claim it. What the two-day fight bought is a performance that sounds entirely relaxed, which is usually what a rejected take on day one buys you if the band is patient enough to come back.

"Without You" by Don Newey is the only tune here Silver did not write, and Blue Mitchell is still appearing by courtesy of Riverside, printed right on the jacket. Blue Note pulled two singles in 1960, 45-1784 pairing "Strollin'" with "Nica's Dream" and 45-1785 pairing "Me And My Baby" with "Where You At." Paula Donohue drew this cover as well, Barbara J. Gardner wrote the notes, Francis Wolff handled the photography.

This is the quintet's steady record rather than its famous one, which is praise for the band and a caution for the shopper. Nothing here reaches for "Senor Blues" or "Sister Sadie," and "Strollin'" is as close as the album gets to a tune people hum on the way out. Discogs dates the original mono to September 1960. A November date circulates in search results with nothing traceable behind it, so leave that one alone.

May 19 and 20, 1961 at the Village Gate, and this is the only live album the classic quintet ever made. That band held together roughly 1959 to 1964, and this is the sole document of it in a room with an audience in front of it, which by itself makes the record necessary. Van Gelder handled the location recording and cut the lacquers back at Englewood Cliffs. Which tracks came from which night is not documented anywhere, so anybody who tells you is guessing.

"Filthy McNasty" is the one that took off, a slow strut the band clearly enjoys more than a studio clock would have allowed. The name is widely said to come from a character in the W.C. Fields film The Bank Dick, and the character does exist, but no statement from Silver confirming it turned up, so that stays attributed rather than asserted. Scott Yanow's line is that the set finds Silver and his most acclaimed quintet stretching out, and stretching out is exactly what a club buys you.

The album exists because Art D'Lugoff said yes, and the jacket carries a printed thank-you to him, which is not something Blue Note sleeves normally do. He had opened the Village Gate in 1958. Note that Discogs transcribes the name as D'Lagoff; the correct spelling is D'Lugoff. Jim Marshall shot the cover and Ira Gitler wrote the notes. Every tune is published by Ecaroh Music, Silver's own company and his first name spelled backward, so he owned this material outright while recording it for somebody else.

There is one counting wrinkle. The original jacket bands five tracks and ends on "The Gringo" and "The Theme"; Wikipedia collapses those two into a single 12:03 entry because they run continuously and the closing theme is Silver's own "Cool Eyes." This page follows the jacket. On first pressings, Discogs contributors argue about whether the labels should read 47 West 63rd or New York USA, and that argument is unresolved user commentary rather than documentation, so buy the copy that plays.

The record everybody owns is two sessions a year apart, and the seam is the interesting part. October 26, 1964 produced four tracks with the new band: Carmell Jones, Joe Henderson, Teddy Smith, Roger Humphries. October 31, 1963 produced the other two with the old one. A third date in January 1964 gave up only CD bonus material and contributed nothing to the LP, whatever you read elsewhere. Two sessions on this album, not three.

Of the two older tracks, only "Calcutta Cutie" actually has Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook on it. "Lonely Woman" is Silver plus Gene Taylor and Roy Brooks and nothing else, and the original jacket prints it as Lonely Woman (Trio). Discogs' credit block puts the horns on it and contradicts its own tracklist in the process; Wikipedia, jazzdisco and Blue Note all call it a piano trio. It is also the most beautiful thing on the record, so it is worth getting right.

Silver's own account of the title tune, from his autobiography, is that he went to Brazil during Carnival as a guest of Sergio Mendes, came home haunted by the bossa nova rhythm, and then found the melody he wrote over it came out sounding like the old Cape Verdean tunes his father used to play. Working out that he had put one thing on top of the other is why he dedicated it to him. The cover photograph is his father, and the full jacket title carries the Portuguese subtitle Cantiga Para Meu Pai.

Two details people get wrong. There is no trumpet solo on the title track: Wikipedia has Carmell Jones soloing only on "The Natives Are Restless Tonight" and "The Kicker" and playing ensemble elsewhere, and Blue Note's own track-by-track names Henderson and Silver as the soloists. And the bass line really is the one Steely Dan borrowed for "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" in 1974, which is the label's own statement rather than a fan theory. Dating splits between a December 1964 pressing and a 1965 street date.

Side one is a quintet and side two is a sextet, and the split is that clean. October 1, 1965 produced "Pretty Eyes," "The African Queen" and the title track, which is all of side one, with Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson, Bob Cranshaw and Roger Humphries. October 22 added J.J. Johnson's trombone for "Nutville," "Bonita" and "Mo' Joe," which is all of side two. The jacket bills the record to The Horace Silver Quintet Plus J.J. Johnson, so the guest is written into the title.

It is named for the same father as the album before it. Silver said in May 1966 that what really turned him toward his heritage was a vacation in Rio with Sergio Mendes, and that he was drawing on African folk music by then. uDiscover reports that the descending horn figure opening "The African Queen" came from an Ivory Coast folk tune, which is their claim rather than his. Everything on the record is Silver's except "Mo' Joe," which belongs to Joe Henderson.

Woody Shaw is the reason to reach for this over the albums either side of it. uDiscover calls it his first Blue Note date and no second source confirmed that, so take the claim as theirs, but the playing needs no framing. He is quick and faintly acid where Blue Mitchell was warm, and Silver's writing sharpens up to meet him. Johnson on side two brings the weight a trombone always brings and never once gets in the way of it.

Blue Note pulled two singles in 1965, including splitting "The African Queen" across both sides of 45-1924, which tells you the label knew which track was strong. Dating is loose: Wikipedia calls it a 1966 album citing a Billboard review that January, jazzdisco dates the catalog number to 1965, and Discogs carries US pressings marked both ways. Recorded October 1965, issued around the turn of the year, is the honest summary. Chart and DownBeat figures in circulation trace to an AI-generated source, so none appear here.

Silver broke his own habit here. He normally recorded with his working band and nobody else, but the February 23, 1968 date that produced side one used exactly one member of his group, Charles Tolliver, plus hired hands: Stanley Turrentine on tenor, Bob Cranshaw on bass, Mickey Roker on drums. The March 29 date that produced side two used the actual road band, with Bennie Maupin on tenor, John Williams on bass and a young drummer named Billy Cobham.

Silver wrote the back-cover notes himself and used them to lay out his rules, opening with the line that the theme of this record is love and stating that he does not believe in politics, hatred or anger in musical composition. Printed in 1968, that is not a neutral sentence. He also names his dedications: the title track for his mother, the greatest soul sister; "Kindred Spirits" for his three brothers; "Rain Dance" as his picture of American Indians dancing around a campfire praying for rain.

Those notes carry unrecorded lyrics to three of these pieces, which points straight at the vocal albums he would make at the turn of the decade. And the budding young talent to be watched that he mentions is Cobham, fresh out of the army, who also shot the cover photograph and would co-found Mahavishnu Orchestra a few years later. Turrentine he calls a giant on his instrument, and nothing on "Psychedelic Sally" argues with that.

Two credit notes on this one. There is no Roy Brooks on this record, whatever you may have read: the drummers are Roker and Cobham, and jazzdisco, Wikipedia and Discogs all agree on it. And "Next Time I Fall in Love" is a piano trio performance with Tolliver off it, confirmed by its later appearance on the 1976 Trio Sides anthology, even though Discogs credits him without qualification. uDiscover says the album reached No. 41 on the US R&B chart, which is a single source, so treat that as theirs.

Two sessions in late 1972, two completely different front lines, one rhythm section holding both of them together. October 6 is a quartet with David Friedman's vibraphone and no horns at all, the first vibes player on any Silver album. November 10 is a quintet with Randy and Michael Brecker. Bob Cranshaw plays electric bass on all seven tracks and Mickey Roker drums on all seven. Alfred Lion had retired and Francis Wolff had died in 1971, so George Butler produced.

The blogs frame this as Silver returning to instrumental hard bop after the United States of Mind vocal trilogy, and that is their reading rather than anything he said, so take it as interpretation. What is actually on the record is looser and more scattered than the 1960s quintets: the vibes tracks drift, the Brecker tracks push, and the two halves never meet. Silver wrote five of the seven. "Liberated Brother" is Weldon Irvine's and "Kathy" is Moacir Santos's.

The title is a genuine dead end. The gatefold carries artwork of twenty-six figures looking toward a larger twenty-seventh, and Silver's notes say the number holds a special meaning for him, and that is where every source stops, including the ones honest enough to say they do not know. I am not inventing a gloss for it. He also mentions Moacir Santos in those notes as about to make his first Blue Note record, which checks out; Maestro turns up in the same run of catalog numbers.

One attribution error worth heading off: a widely read blog working from a Japanese CD puts the Breckers on tracks 1, 3 and 6 and claims the title track has both groups playing at once. The 1973 US jacket, Wikipedia and jazzdisco all disagree, and the title track came off the horn-less October quartet date. Three stars from me: the playing is good throughout and "Gregory Is Here" is lovely, but a record assembled from two unrelated sessions tends to sound like one, and this one does.