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Horace Silver: Recollections and Retrospections
Horace Silver
piano1928 - 2014
The front lines of the bandstand always featured great hornmen i.e.
Hank Mobley
saxophone, tenor1930 - 1986
Sonny Stitt
saxophone1924 - 1982
Fats Navarro
trumpet1923 - 1950
Kenny Dorham
trumpet1924 - 1972
Sonny Rollins
saxophoneb.1930
Clifford Brown
trumpetb.1930
Blue Mitchell
trumpet1930 - 1979
Lou Donaldson
saxophone1926 - 2024
Percy Heath
bass, acoustic1923 - 2005
Louis Hayes
drumsb.1937
Art Blakey
drums1919 - 1990
We sat in Birdland's peanut gallery as often as we could get there and watched idolatrously as Peewee Marquette introduced the boppers who were our heroes. Though not yet household names, we knew they would one day become immortalized and it is comforting to know looking back on the scene that we were spot on. But the one figure who seemed to get lost in the cascade of plaudits was Horace Silver. I was never sure why he didn't receive the loud kudos that most of the others did, but as the years went on I began to realize that Silver was never a big self-promoter and observed that his ego was as small as he was.
Actually, the great album A Night at Birdland recorded live in February 1954 provided an opportunity for me to comment on Silver's modest personality when I wrote extensively about it in my biography of Clifford Brown (Oxford University Press) published in 2000. According to my research it was primarily Horace Silver who organized the group the "Jazz Messengers" under a tacit cooperative agreement with Art Blakey and others at the time. Silver had come of age in 1950 when
Stan Getz
saxophone, tenor1927 - 1991
I concluded in my account of this time that it was Silver's valuable recording association that propelled the organization of the Jazz messengers. Still, it was Blakey's personality dominance that prevailed and the group became known as Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Nevertheless, a few years later in November 1954 Silver recorded Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers which established him as a pioneer of hard bop because of the popularity of two of his unique compositions—"Doodlin'" and "The Preacher."
Indeed it was Silver's composing stature that earned him continued support from the record industry. But he never did receive the cornucopia of praise from jazz writers, magazines or other media that compared with that of many of his hard bop cohorts who had less to offer.
Still, Silver continued his seminal composing and recording legacy and my next contact with him was in 1996 when he was nominated for a Grammy for his noteworthy album Hard Bop Grand Pop. When I spoke with him in connection with my review I noted that he still manifested that stoic self-effacing persona that I had witnessed decades before. We talked about a charming radio program (WWOZ, New Orleans) that I had heard about dubbed "Silver at Six" and I wondered why there wasn't more of that kind of thing in conjunction with his stalwart career. He laughed and said it had been many years since he had stopped wondering about why he wasn't included in the jazz media mainstream. I myself have never stopped wondering about the relative inconspicuousness of this jazz immortal.
Tags
Horace Silver
New York Beat
Nick Catalano
United States
Hank Mobley
Sonny Stitt
Fats Navarro
Kenny Dorham
Sonny Rollins
Clifford Brown
Blue Mitchell
Lou Donaldson
Louis Hayes
Art Blakey
Stan Getz
Blue Note Records
New Orleans
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