BLP 1520

Horace Silver Trio

Released - October 1956

Recording and Session Information

Horace Silver, piano; Gene Ramey, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

BN448 tk.1 Horoscope
BN449-1 tk.5 Safari

WOR Studios, NYC, October 20, 1952
Horace Silver, piano; Curly Russell, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

BN453-2 tk.6 Ecaroh
BN454-0 tk.7 Yeah!
BN456-3 tk.15 Prelude To A Kiss

WOR Studios, NYC, November 23, 1953
Horace Silver, piano #2,3,5-7; Percy Heath, bass #2,3,5-7; Art Blakey, drums; "Sabu" Martinez, bongos, congas #1.

BN533-0 tk.1 Message From Kenya
BN534-2 tk.6 Opus De Funk
BN535-1 tk.9 Day In, Day Out
BN536-0 tk.11 Nothing But The Soul
BN537-1 tk.14 I Remember You
BN538-0 tk.15 Silverware
BN539-0 tk.18 How About You

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Safari	Horace Silver	09/10/1952
Ecaroh	Horace Silver	20/10/1952
Prelude to a Kiss	Irving Gordon, Irving Mills, Duke Ellington	20/10/1952
Message from Kenya	Art Blakey	23/11/1953
Horoscope	Horace Silver	09/10/1952
Yeah	Horace Silver	20/10/1952
Side Two
How About You?	Ralph Freed, Burton Lane	23/11/1953
I Remember You	Johnny Mercer, Victor Schertzinger	23/11/1953
Opus de Funk	Horace Silver	23/11/1953
Nothing But the Soul	Art Blakey	23/11/1953
Silverware	Horace Silver	23/11/1953
Day In, Day Out	Johnny Mercer, Rube Bloom	23/11/1953

Credits

Cover Photo:	FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design:	REID K. MILES
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	LEONARD FEATHER

Liner Notes

Most inquiring jazz fans became aware of Horace Silver when he was first with the Stan Getz quartet in 1950. It is a tribute to Stan’s taste and musical foresight that he plucked Horace from a small nightclub in Hartford, Connecticut. Talent will always shine if someone will only open the curtain. Stan and other leaders like Terry Gibbs, Lester Young and Art Blakey helped to open that curtain on Horace and once it was opened the audience didn’t want it closed. It wasn’t a huge audience but it was an enthusiastic one. There was one more ingredient needed to make Horace’s performances more widely known and this Was illumination At this point Blue Note entered and Alfred Lion, a master with “Flood lights, foot lights, spotlights and color wheel,” shed so much light on the Silver piano that the whole country saw and heard him. In fact, the light carried overseas too, for Horace won the new star award in the Down Beat International Critic’s Poll in 1954.

This LP represents the beginning of Horace’s recording career as a leader and contains the best trio sides from 1952 and 1953. His later recordings which led to the formation of the Jazz Messengers can be heard on Blue Note BLP 1518.

In his original compositions Horace espouses the philosophy of “funk.” During his North American “Safari” he quotes Duke Ellington’s “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing” and goes on to practice that doctrine throughout, especially in his summing up — ”Opus De Funk.” The earthy feeling of the blues idiom which permeates his writing and playing is bottled here as a full-strength solution. “Opus De Funk” has also been recorded by Milt Jackson and Woody Herman’s band.

There are many other rewardingly individual originals. “Ecaroh” has two different themes, one at the opening and the other making an effective peak at the close. The “can’t get it out of your head” “Horoscope” is as fresh to me now as when I used to wake up to it every morning of a Florida vacation in the winter of 1953. The typical affirmative reaction to the name of Horace Silver is explained by the contents and represented in the title of “Yeah” and the 1953 Horacio Sterling that is put on display in the “Silverware” department is both highly polished and utilitarian.

Horace does not neglect the ballad standards either. He swings “How About You?” and “Day In, Day Out” just as he swings day in, day out. Ellington’s “Prelude To A Kiss,” with Curly Russell’s sonorous bowing, and “I Remember You,” show the sensitive, searching side of Silver.

Not only is Horace a soloist in this LP but also an integral part of a trio, sometimes with Russell or Gene Ramey or Percy Heath and the omnipresent, omnipotent Art Blakey. The way Art punctuates and underlines is masterful. His solo on “Safari” where the drums literally talk is but a sample of his two feature numbers in the set.

-IRA GITLER

“Message From Kenya” teams Art with Sabu Martinez, the 24-year-old conga drum virtuoso who came here some nine years ago from Puerto Rico. He has been featured with Josephine Premice, played in Tito Rodriquez’s mambo orchestra and was prominent in the last big band of Dizzy Gillespie, in which he took over the role originally filled by the late and great Chano Pozo.

The story of “Message From Kenya,” Art tells us, was first told to him by Moes Mann, a Nigerian drummer who worked in this country with Pearl Primus. The evocation, voiced dramatically in a mixture of Spanish and Swahili, tells of a hunter whose cries celebrate the news that he has captured more game than any other hunter in the village, in order to convince the girl he loves of his prowess. The ritual comes vividly to life as Sabu and Blakey develop a study in rhythmic variety and dynamics with exciting crescendos and dimuendos.

On the other drum number, “Nothing But The Soul,” Art is alone. Despite the temptation to use this opportunity by wandering off in a variety of pyrotechnical displays with all kinds of tempo and mood changes, Art has chosen to limit himself mainly to the development and maintenance of the beat, in a dazzling assortment of interpretations.

While there is nothing in this performance calculated to amaze the drum schools, there is much that will intrigue the average listener in Art’s demonstration of rhythmic patterns, in the dramatic suspension during a long roll, in the dexterity with which he handles the sticks and snares. Art won the Down Beat Critics Poll in 1953 and the public has followed suit by acclaiming him no less enthusiastically.

—LEONARD FEATHER

Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID K. MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT HORACE SILVER TRIO

Selecting the most significant Horace Silver Quintet albums is a tricky business. Ever since he began his career as a bandleader in 1956, it has been hard to think of the name Horace Silver without the word quintet attached. Silver’s immediate and ongoing success in presenting a unit with a two-horn front line tempts us to overlook his earlier triumphs in the trio format, sessions (collected here in their entirety) that were the source of his initial popularity. Two of Silver’s primary influences, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, had already taped definitive modern trio music for Blue Note, and producer Alfred Lion also employed the format in introducing pianists Kenny Drew, Elmo Hope, Wynton Kelly and Herbie Nichols. The trio format also proved ideal for highlighting the charged Silver piano style, his memorable writing and (for the first time) commanding presence as a leader.

Silver had been in New York for two years prior to the first of these sessions, working and recording with Stan Getz, Lou Donaldson and Terry Gibbs while also backing such legendary figures as Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge and Lester Young in the city’s clubs. Several early Silver compositions appeared on Getz and Donaldson sessions in 1951 and ‘52, offering the first signs of his structural invention, humor and ability to create vivid musical atmospheres. Silver’s first Blue Note appearance with Donaldson in June 1952, which includes the gem “Roccus,” also revealed new definition and personality in the pianist’s instrumental conception. That encounter led to New Faces — New Sounds: Introducing the Horace Silver Trio, taped in two October sessions, and to Horace Silver Trio Volume 2 thirteen months later. The majority of the music from these 10" LPs found its way onto 12’ BLP1520; although space limitations required the omission of four of the 16 tracks that remained unavailable for over two decades. The present volume includes all of the music from Silver’s two initial albums, presented in the original 10" program sequences.

The New Faces Volume was done in two separate sessions, with bass duties shared by Gene Ramey and Curly Russell. Ramey is on the earlier, October 9 date, which produced "Horoscope," "Safari" and "Thou Swell." (Certain sources notwithstanding, a version of “Yeah” from this initial session has never been issued.) The originals reappeared later in Silver Quintet arrangements — "Safari," with an intriguing introduction and coda added, on the 1958 Further Explorations album, and “Horoscope,” respelled, as the title track of Horace-Scope from 1960. “Thou Swell,” omitted from the first 12’ reissue, features one of Silver’s quirky stop-time intros, Art Blakey’s galvanizing beat and a “Let It Snow” allusion draped across two choruses so indicative of Silver’s mastery of quotation.

Russell, who would join Silver and Blakey in February 1954 on the classic A Night At Birdland recordings, is the bassist at the October 20, 1952 session, and provides a rare example of his bowing technique on “Prelude To A Kiss.” Neither the irregular melody “Knowledge Box” nor “Quicksilver” (based on the chords of “Lover Come Back To Me”) were included on BLP1520; but two quintet versions of “Quicksilver” were part of the aforementioned Birdland albums. The remaining two titles with Russell also saw life in quintet versions, with the complex, spellbinding "Ecaroh" on The Jazz Messengers (Columbia, 1956) and “Yeah” as an uptempo flagwaver on the Horace-Scope album.

During the 13 months that followed the production of Silver’s debut as a leader, the pianist recorded with Donaldson, Sonny Stitt, Howard McGhee and Al Cohn. He also began working frequently with Donaldson, Blakey and Kenny Dorham in a unit that ultimately became the original Jazz Messengers. While both Ramey and Russell held the bass chair at times, and Doug Watkins was on board when the Messengers name was adopted, Percy Heath was the bassist of choice for Silver’s second Blue Note album. The inspired trio of Silver, Heath and Blakey went on to support Miles Davis on both Blue Note and Prestige in early 1954. Heath is more of a presence than the earlier bassists, stepping forward in solo on “Silverware” and conversation with Blakey on "Opus De Funk." Blakey is even more prominent, with two of the album’s eight tracks given over to spotlighting his revolutionary approach. “Message From Kenya,” where he is teamed with Sabu Martinez, anticipates the orgies in rhythm Blakey would tape for Columbia and Blue Note, and “Nothing But The Soul” is a prototype for his influential solo style.

Silver’s six tracks are equally divided between standards and originals, though his trio orchestrations make even the most familiar tunes highly personal. “I Remember You,” with its slow tempo and echoes of Bud Powell in the introduction, is a rare instance of Silver stating a theme in block chords. Monk comes to mind at the opening of “Buhaina,” a tribute to Blakey omitted from BLP1520 but reprised by Silver (and Heath, with Kenny Clarke on drums) for a Milt Jackson Prestige date seven months after this debut recording. Jackson’s session also included the first cover of Silver’s blues “Opus de Funk,” a composition that Woody Herman’s big band, Tubby Hayes’s British quartet and a second Jackson unit had already revisited by the time this original made, its way to 12’ LP in late 1955.

-Bob Blumenthal, 2003