BN-LA-474-H2

Horace Silver -The Trio Sides

Released - 1975

Recording and Session Information

WOR Studios, NYC, October 9, 1952
Horace Silver, piano; Gene Ramey, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

BN448 tk.1 Horoscope
BN449-1 tk.5 Safari
BN450-6 tk.15 Thou Swell

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

BN452-1 tk.2 Quicksilver
BN453-2 tk.6 Ecaroh
BN454-0 tk.7 Yeah!
BN455-3 tk.11 Knowledge Box
BN456-3 tk.15 Prelude To A Kiss

WOR Studios, NYC, November 23, 1953
Horace Silver, piano; Percy Heath, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

BN534-2 tk.6 Opus De Funk
BN535-1 tk.9 Day In, Day Out
BN537-1 tk.14 I Remember You
BN538-0 tk.15 Silverware
BN539-0 tk.18 How About You
BN540-0 tk.21 Buhaina

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, November 10, 1956
Horace Silver, piano; Doug Watkins, bass; Louis Hayes, drums.

tk.10 Shirl
tk.18 For Heaven's Sake

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, January 13, 1958
Horace Silver, piano; Teddy Kotick, bass; Louis Hayes, drums.

tk.9 Melancholy Mood

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, January 31, 1959
Horace Silver, piano; Eugene Taylor, bass; Louis Hayes, drums.

tk.34 Sweet Stuff

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, September 13, 1959
Horace Silver, piano; Eugene Taylor, bass; Louis Hayes, drums.

tk.7 Melancholy Mood (new version)
tk.8 The St. Vitus Dance

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, July 14, 1962
Horace Silver, piano; Gene Taylor, bass; John Harris Jr., drums.

tk.21 Cherry Blossom

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, October 31, 1963
Horace Silver, piano; Gene Taylor, bass; Roy Brooks, drums.

tk.5 Lonely Woman

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, March 29, 1968
Horace Silver, piano; John Williams, bass; Billy Cobham, drums.

2083 Next Time I Fall In Love

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Safari	Horace Silver	October 9 1952
Thou Swell	Rodgers-Hart	October 9 1952
Horoscope	Horace Silver	October 9 1952
Yeah	Horace Silver	October 20 1952
Ecaroh	Horace Silver	October 20 1952
Prelude To A Kiss	Ellington-Gordon-Mills	October 20 1952
Quicksilver	Horace Silver	October 20 1952
Knowledge Box	Horace Silver	October 20 1952
Side Two
How About You	B. Lane-R. Freed	November 25 1953
I Remember You	J. Mercer-V. Schertzinger	November 25 1953
Silverware	Horace Silver	November 25 1953
Opus De Funk	Horace Silver	November 25 1953
Buhainia	Horace Silver	November 25 1953
Day In, Day Out	J. Mercer-R. Bloom	November 25 1953
Shirl	Horace Silver	November 10 1956
Side Three
For Heaven's Sake	Meyer-Bretton-Edwards	November 10 1956
Melancholy Mood (First Version)	Horace Silver	January 13 1958
Sweet Stuff	Horace Silver	January 31 1959
Melancholy Mood (Second Version)	Horace Silver	September 13 1959
Side Four
The St. Vitous Dance	Horace Silver	September 13 1959
Cherry Blossom	R. Bright	July 14 1962
Lonely Woman	Horace Silver	October 31 1962
Next Time I Fall In Love	Horace Silver	March 29 1968

Liner Notes

HORACE SILVER

The 1950's were rich period for keyboard improvisation, Ray Charles was beginning to create a concoction that mixed gospel, country blues with a contemporary rhythm and blues beat. Cecil Taylor recorded a monumental disc for Transition, Jazz Advance. Bill Evans hit the scene and recorded with The George Russell Workshop, doing his best soloing in my opinion. Most important was the discovery of Thelonious Monk, who had been performing for many years in semi-obscurity. He cut a superb series of albums for Riverside and led an important quartet which included saxophonist John Coltrane. It was during this decade that Horace Silver emerged and awakened the scene. Here was a piano style that blended many of the ingredients of the Ray Charles style with be-bop, often seasoned with Latin influences, Horace knew how to cook at all temperatures.

Horace Silver grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut, and played baritone saxophone in junior high school; later he played tenor. But Horace didn't ignore the piano. He studied with the late organist William Schofield. According to classmate Sgt, Ernie Muro, now a flutist with the West Point Band, Horace was outgoing, personable and even then committed to music. Before the late forties, Horace appeared under the sponsorship of the USO at several Veteran's Hospitals on the East Coast with Bob Santo. Attorney Frank Zullo, former Mayor of Norwalk, recollected over ten years later, that Horace Silver was considered the ultimate authority on chord changes. In the summer of 1969, Norwalk celebrated a Horace Silver Day and Horace was presented with the key to the city.

His first major turning point was the moment when Stan Getz caught him at the Sundown, a small club on Windsor Street in Hartford, Connecticut. Horace was playing with the Ray Beller Quintet which included bassist Joe Gallaway and Walter Boland on drums.

Over many years the environment around Windsor street has produced some of the most exciting improvisations in Southern New England. This is where Bishop I.L. Jefferson presides over the Holy Trinity Church of God in Christy where choir directors Mother Sarah Carter and contralto Edith Powell produce a brand of Gospel music far more pungent than often heard in Newark, N.J., often considered to be the capitol of the East Coast Gospel scene.

In the vicinity of the Elks Club a host of Hartford's finest improvisers, such as pianist Norman Macklin, tenor saxophonist Bobby Johnson, bassist Ernie Wilson constantly performed. This club was within spitting distance from the Sundown. For a long time Horace could be heard in both clubs. According to Norman Macklin, there was a marked change in his playing after 1950. He played fewer notes. Stan Getz engaged Horace as well as Boland and Galloway for work in New York. Sides were cut, many of which can be heard on "The Best of Stan Getz — Echoes of an Era", Roulette RE 119. Horace Silver's introduction on Gigi Gryce's "Wildwood" gives the best foretaste of the mature Silver style. The sides which include Horace were cut in 1950-1951.

Critic Martin Williams writes:
It has occurred to some commentators to look for a formal synthesis of modern jazz in Horace Silver's work, but Silver has some of his roots set too directly and too firmly in the 'thirties'. In his approach to the piano he owes a harmonic sophistication to modern jazz, and he pays an obvious debt to Bud Powell's style, but often his manner of phrasing and some of his ideas of rhythm come very directly from an earlier time. If one says that Horace Silver sounds like a cross between Bud Powell and Pete Johnson, he had better acknowledge that there is an urbanity in several of Johnson's slow blues that Silver, in his determination to cook, may not manifest. Silver's groups sometimes give a similar impression of a cross between a be-bop quintet and a little Southwestern jump-blues band of the thirties or early forties, But there is more to his music than ingenious hybrid.
Jazz Tradition, Mentor Press, P

Of paramount importance is Horace Silver's ability to strip away non-essentials, such as the semi-cocktail ornamentations that so many "jazz" pianists delight in using. With the exception of a few early ballads, the Silver style is uncluttered by these conventions. I don't mean to imply that all his ideas are top-drawer; for instance, many musical quotes thrown into an otherwise fine if not remarkable line are a strong irritant. The solos that succeed least are marred by a momentary lack of inspiration, an inferior choice of notes but not by pointless digressions that so many pianist's right hand's find irresistible.

In the January 1976 "Contemporary Keyboard", Len Lyons describes Silver as "a conspicuously physical and highly unorthodox pianist who slouches on the bench, sways his shoulders and claws the keyboard, attacking each note with his whole body, His technique is enough to give a classical teacher nightmares, but there is no denying that he swings with all the precision of a tightly wound metronome."

"Claws the keyboard" and the "precision of a tightly wound metronome" are accurate appraisals and should not be too easily dismissed. The energy with which Silver erupts is often greater than the content of ideas.

The joy, humor and ebullience is tempered with strong jabs of reality. There is not the anger of Charles Mingus or Max Roach, the private surreal humor of Thelonious Monk, the multi-dimensional corridors of George Russell, the irony of Billie Holiday, but the optimism in Horace's music is in no way that of an insular artist all one instinctively feels is that he has conquered the survival game.

Michael James, in his "Jazz On Record", describes Silver's music as optimistic but uncharacteristic of its era. I find this comment arguable. In many ways the quintets that Horace led conformed much more to the norm than those of Elmo Hope, Monk and Mingus, Silver's music was a positive affirmation of what was best in hard bop funk.

James continues:
A similar concentration on extended single-note phrases in the right hand, bodied by persistent chords in the left, may be discerned, but it is noticeable that Silver, unlike Powell, plays fractionally behind the beat, so that his work, whilst lacking the tremendous drive of the older man's, offers a relaxed clarity that is quite attractive in its own way, 'Safari' indicates that during 1952 and 1953 Silver was building a truly personal manner out of the Powell based approach he had favoured earlier. His timing was now faultless; his touch individual if not relentlessly percussive; and his new manner was distinguished not so much by melodic continuity in the conventional sense — his phrases, by and large, were by now much shorter — as by a constant quest for variety, both of shapes and implied rhythms.

'Thou Swell", the Richard Rodgers song from the neglected musical, "A Connecticut Yankee", follows. His solo has youthful energy but the lack of silence is like unpunctuated paragraphs.

Many people feel that rapping about form and meter overintellectualizes the improvisers original intention. However, a piece of music such as "Horoscope", with its clearly defined sections is an excellent starting point for students who wish to delve into the very rich tradition of Afro-American music. Below appears a plan for the first chorus. The chorus can be divided into 2 or 3 sections, There is an A section which is made up of a 6 bar group of phrases of 2 bars each, followed by a 2 bar vamp. I've indicated in the right column the chords for these three 2 bar motives; x refers to a dominant flavored chord. Then follows a B section divided into two 4 bar passages which consists of a new melody and a 4 bar vamp, Some of you may wish to consider the vamp its very own section, thus making it the C section, The vamp has been heard earlier as the introduction, I A a2 upward skip followed by three descending notes„ Imaj, — bVlx
a2 upward skip followed by three descending notes. Imaj, — bVlx V- Vx
a2 upward skip followed by three descending notes. Imaj. — bVlx V- Ix a2 vamp

B c4 melodic figure
d (usually) 4 vamp introduction

Note that Horace Silver uses material from the first improvised chorus three choruses later.

The simplicity of "Horoscope", admittingly uncomplex if compared to George Russell and Duke Ellington, is deceptive. Ingenious are the 7th and 8th bar vamps that appear in the A section, So many of Horace Silver's irregularly constructed (number of bars per section) compositions are important because they have created improvising challenges for Silver's horn players throughout the years. 'Horoscope", relatively orthodox, contains a puzzle or two.

"Yeah", another original, completes the first recording session. The solo, idiomatic of very early 1950's Horace, is less singular than that of "Horoscope" and doesn't have the foretaste of his later style.

"Ecaroh" is one of the most durable of Horace's earlier works, It was recorded for Columbia in a quintet version, Horace's solo begins with a simplified bop line, then he rhythmically crushes fifths.

"Prelude To A Kiss", from the Ellington book, (which so often includes unacknowledged Billy Strayhorn) finds Horace in a less personal mood. After a nice introduction, the melody is treated with reharmonized East Side rubato; then there is a tempo section and block chords.

The real Horace Silver bursts forth on the freewheeling "Quicksilver", There is an "Oh You Beautiful Doll" quote. Are there stories behind these quotes?

Especially impressive is the first side closer, "Knowledge Box", which for many years has been unavailable and is quite a gem. Unlike "Horoscope", his ideas often contain themselves in 8 bar phrases. The results sound easy, There are even a few predictable sequences, but few pianists can cook with such heat. The 32-bar be-bop figuration has been pared to its essence.

"How About You", "I Remember You" and "Day In, Day Out" are three standards which grace side 2, but the essence of Horace Silver is more evident on his originals, particularly "Shirl".

Many of Horace Silver's solos tend to become less boppish and more funkish as they proceed. Of course this is a generalization; it is not true in "Silverware" when broken down.

II A 4 bars — funk
4 bars — neo-bop
A 4 bars — funk
4 bars — bop
B 2 bars — bop
6 bars - sequences
A synthesis of bop and funk

III A borrowed qualities
A borrowed qualities
B delightfully bop inspired line which gradually becomes pan-tonal a la George Russell
A funk

"Opus De Funk", one of the first jazz-funk pieces which typifies the movement became such a favorite that Woody Herman recorded it for Capitol.

Horace's 7 chorus solo is beautifully realized here. The 6th chorus of the piece (4th chorus of the solo) introduces riff-like material which seems calculated and unfortunately not repeated. This serves as a relaxation point which spurts a new creative flow of energy that we hear on the last 4 bars of the chorus.

"Buhaina" is more straight ahead Silver. The introduction makes an oblique reference to Monk but this is just a morsel of his outer crust. This is the last cut on the album with Art Blakey, leader of the Jazz Messengers, in whose group Horace Silver literally became music director in the mid 1950's.

On "Shirl" and "For Heaven's Sake", recorded two years later, Horace has gained assurance as a leader. He gets his teeth into the ballad, "Shirl" from the first note. There is beautiful spacing, a new maturity, Horace has made a tremendous stylistic jump. "Shirl" may vie with "Sweet Stuff' as the example of Horace's most probing playing on this double reissue. Everything works, even sequential licks. There is a new longevity in mood and linear ideas. His use of chord extensions in his solo show increased growth in his harmonic imagination. The rhythm section is taut. Louis Hayes is a particularly sensitive ally.

"For Heaven's Sake", recorded in a definitive vocal version by Billie Holiday in her next to last recording, "Lady in Satin", is a painful reminder of her suffering. During the bridge of the opening chorus, Horace makes use of the bridge of "Nica's Dream", his own portrait of from "Parker's Mood" weave themselves naturally into the fabric.

Martin Williams calls "Sweet Stuff" remarkable and adds:
Silver's spurting right hand phrases and heavy chords may again seem isolated fragments at first, cumulatively, however, the performance soon takes on the hypnotic effect of a passionately chanted incantation, The right hand phrases on "Sujeet Stuff' are rendered with a remarkably sustained emotional directness. and the performer avoids both the sentimentality and callousness which are inherent temptations to lesser players in such a piece; "Sweet Stuff' is a unique, almost unforgettable performance. And Silver has achieved it not only in terms of his own style, but by taking ingenious advantage of the very things that otherwise seem flaws in his playing.
"Jazz Tradition' - Mentor Books. P

Because Thelonious Monk, John Lewis and Horace Silver don't play many notes, they are often attacked by critics who are aurally blinded by audaciously cascading runs. These critics fail to realize that behind this high energy there is more extravert verbiage than a deep commitment to the content of ideas.

Both versions of "Melancholy Mood" are worth several repeated hearings, The second version is less somber and is in fact rather bright toward the end of Horace's improvised solo played in doubletime. Clichés exist, but they become more and more Horace's own.

Martin Williams calls "Saint Vitous Dance"
...an exceptional five minutes by a piano trio, and its medium tempo may be just the right one for Silver. The romantic harmonies of "Saint Vitous" will convince you again that Silver can make anything sound naturally earthy, and his improvising has a melodic continuity and design that I don't believe he has shown elsewhere on records. "Jazz Tradition" —P

It is indeed a fine solo, but many of its elements hark back to his early 50's ideas.

"Cherry Blossoms", "Lonely Woman" and "Next Time I Fall In Love" are all ballads whose heads are more conventional than 'Sweet Stuff" There are a couple of instances when Horace Silver's right hand voices the melody in thirds — a none too original device which recalls his early 50's ballads. But there are delicious moments too.

"Pecking" was a term used to describe some of JR Monterose's work when he was playing in Albany during the late 50's. Perhaps a similar word can be used to depict the Silver trademark of 4 descending notes, the inner ones which occur in the same pitch, which Horace plays on "Lonely Woman"

This album does not include certain dimensions of Horace Silver's greatest accomplishments. As the leader of a quintet he created a readily identifiable two horn sound which served as a springboard for countless other groups of the 50's and 60's, Working with horns opened up new vistas in the area of color as his composing matured. Horace also became one of the greatest accompanists of his era.

And yet many of us consider these two trio tracks to be Horace Silver's most personal documents. Now, in another era, they still remain fresh.

RAN BLAKE
Recording artist, Chairman of the Third Stream Department at the New England Conservatory of Music, Music/Arts columnist for the Bay State Banner