Jazz Articles about Horace Silver

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Let's Get to the Nitty Gritty: The Autobiography of Horace Silver

by Ken Dryden
May 8, 2006

Let's Get to the Nitty Gritty: The Autobiography of Horace Silver Horace Silver Hardcover; 282 pages ISBN: 0520243749 University of California Press 2006

Horace Silver's life story is very entertaining. The pianist and composer, who has pretty much retired from performing due to back problems, pulls few punches in discussing his life, illustrating it with numerous humorous or poignant anecdotes, from his days growing up in Connecticut to hitting the ...

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Horace Silver: Silver's Blue

by Jim Santella
October 24, 2005

Recorded in July of 1956, Silver's Blue expresses the true meaning of the blues. Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd, and Joe Gordon “sing out" with a spirit true to the form as pianist Horace Silver sculpts Jazz Messenger empathy from his quintets. Half of the session comes from the leader's composing pen, “Hank's Tune" comes from Mobley's pen, and the others are standards. Silver's piano weaves the tradition of jazz through each selection with care. As a blues-based program, ...

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Horace Silver: Rockin

by David Adler
July 3, 2004

Inspired by a dream and conceived as a stage musical that ran for three nights in Hollywood in 1991, the jazz suite Rockin’ with Rachmaninoff has finally reached listeners in CD form. For various reasons, piano great Horace Silver kept these twelve tracks on the shelf for over a decade. They find “the hard bop grandpop” in excellent form, backed by a strong cast of players: Michael Mossman on trumpet, Rickey Woodard, Ralph Bowen and Doug Webb on tenors, Andy ...

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Horace Silver: Hard Bop Pioneer Forges Ahead

by Katie Alvarez
February 13, 2004

Looking back over the last fifty years of jazz it is clear that few musicians have had a greater impact on the contemporary mainstream than Horace Silver. The hard bop style that Silver pioneered in the '50s is now dominant, played not only by holdovers from an earlier generation, but also by fuzzy-cheeked musicians who had yet to be born when the music fell out of critical favor in the '60s and '70s. One of the most individual and distinctive ...

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A Fireside Chat with Horace Silver

by AAJ Staff
February 13, 2004

I have interviewed Horace Silver through the years and he remains an icon to me. The more I appreciate the Lion/Wolff Blue Note days of yesteryear, the more admirable Silver's Blue Notes are. There is enough bio and cred info on Silver's career, done in a more fitting manner than I could, so allow me folks, Mr. Horace Silver, unedited and in his own words.All About Jazz: When did you become an Angeleno?Horace Silver: I've been ...

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Horace Silver: Horace Silver: Re-Entry

by John Ballon
December 19, 2003

Rare and essential live recordings that capture the great Horace Silver Quintet in action at New York City's Half-Note. Always a force to be reckoned with, Silver's mid-60s band was consistently adventurous, original, and funky, anchored in the steady rhythms of bassist Larry Ridley and drummer Roger Humphries, and steeped in the passion of Joe Henderson's tenor sax. In many ways, these recordings are defined by Henderson's inspired playing, as Joe gets many chances to ...

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A Fireside Chat With Horace Silver

by AAJ Staff
December 18, 2003

It's difficult for me to imagine hard bop without Horace Silver. It is impossible for me to imagine Blue Note without Horace Silver. And I would wake up in a cold sweat at the mere thought of not having Six Pieces of Silver, The Stylings of Silver, Further Explorations by the Horace Silver Quintet, Finger Poppin' with the Horace Silver Quintet, Blowin' the Blues Away, Horace-Scope, Doin' the Ting (At the Village Gate; the Tokyo Blues and Silver's Serenade in ...