Table of Contents:
Horace Silver: The Top 25 pearls in Jazz history
Horace Silver biography
From the perspective of the 21st century, it is clear that few jazz musicians 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.
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Silver’s earliest musical influence was the Cape Verdean folk music he heard from his Portuguese-born father. Later, after he had begun playing piano and saxophone as a high schooler, Silver came under the spell of blues singers and boogie-woogie pianists, as well as boppers like Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell.
In 1950, Stan Getz played a concert in Hartford, Connecticut, with a pickup rhythm section that included Silver, drummer Walter Bolden, and bassist Joe Calloway. So impressed was Getz, he hired the whole trio. Silver had been saving his money to move to New York anyway; his hiring by Getz sealed the deal.
Silver worked with Getz for a year, then began to freelance around the city with such big-time players as Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Oscar Pettiford. In 1952, he recorded with Lou Donaldson for the Blue Note label; this date led him to his first recordings as a leader. In 1953, he joined forces with Art Blakey to form a cooperative under their joint leadership.
The band’s first album, Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers, was a milestone in the development of the genre that came to be known as hard bop. Many of the tunes penned by Silver for that record — “The Preacher,” “Doodlin’,” “Room 608” — became jazz classics.
By 1956, Silver had left the Messengers to record on his own. The series of Blue Note albums that followed established him for all time as one of jazz’s major composer/pianists. LPs like Blowin’ the Blues Away and Song for My Father (both recorded by an ensemble that included Silver’s longtime sidemen Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook) featured Silver’s harmonically sophisticated and formally distinctive compositions for small jazz ensemble.
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Silver’s piano style — terse, imaginative, and utterly funky — became a model for subsequent mainstream pianists to emulate. Some of the most influential horn players of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s first attained a measure of prominence with Silver — musicians like Donald Byrd, Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson, Benny Golson, and the Brecker Brothers all played in Silver’s band at a point early in their careers. Silver has even affected members of the avant-garde; Cecil Taylor confesses a Silver influence, and trumpeter Dave Douglas played briefly in a Silver combo.
Silver recorded exclusively for Blue Note until that label’s eclipse in the late ’70s, whereupon he started his own label, Silveto. Horace Silver’s ’80s work was poorly distributed.
During that time he began writing lyrics to his compositions, and his work began to display a concern with music’s metaphysical powers, as exemplified by album titles like Music to Ease Your Disease and Spiritualizing the Senses. In the ’90s, Silver abandoned his label venture and began recording for Columbia.
With his re-emergence on a major label, Silver once again received a measure of the attention his contributions deserve. Certainly, no one ever contributed a larger and more vital body of original compositions to the jazz canon. Silver died in New York on June 18, 2014, at the age of 85.
He had a son, Gregory – now a rap musician under the name of G Wise – from his marriage to Barbara, which ended in divorce.
Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver, pianist and composer, born 2 September 1928, died 18 June 2014.
Selected Discography
Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers, Blue Note, 1954
Blowin’ the Blues Away, Blue Note, 1959
Song For My Father, Blue Note, 1964
Cape Verdean Blues, Blue Note, 1965
The Hardbop Grandpop, GRP, 1996
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Horace Silver – Blowin The Blues Away
Personnel:
Horace Silver – piano
Blue Mitchell – trumpet
Junior Cook – tenor saxophone
Gene Taylor – bass
Louis Hayes – drums
from the album ‘BLOWIN’ THE BLUES AWAY’ (Blue Note Records)
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Herbie Hancock The Piano (Solo Piano transcriptions) | Herbie Hancock The Piano | |
Herbie Hancock Watermelon Man | Herbie Hancock Watermelon Man | |
Herbie Hancock Watermelon Man Jazz Standard arr. Carsten Gerlitz | ||
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Hijo de la Luna (Mecano) | ||
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Hip Hop For Piano Solo 10 Inventive Arrangements | ||
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Hirokazu Sato Collected Works For Guitar | Hirokazu Sato Collected Works For Guitar | |
Hirokazu Sato Collected Works For Guitar 2 | Hirokazu Sato Collected Works For Guitar 2 | |
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Hiromi Uehara – Joy | ||
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Hiromi Uehara Move Transcriptionpdf | ||
Hiromi Uehara Sakura Sakura Transcription | ||
Hiromi Uehara Solo Piano Works | Hiromi uehara solo piano | |
Hiromi Uehara The Tom And Jerry Show | ||
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Hiromi Uehara Wake Up And Dream – Sheet Music For Piano Transcription | ||
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Hiromi Uheara – My Way (Comme d’habitude) | ||
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Historia de un Amor (Guadalupe Pineda) | ||
Hit The Road Jack – Ray Charles Easy Piano.mscz | ||
Hoagy Carmichael – Georgia On My Mind | ||
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Hoagy Carmichael – Star Dust | ||
Hocuspocus Full Score | ||
Hoffmanns Erzählungen, J. Offenbach (arr. piano) | ||
Hokage’s Funeral Naruto No Theme – Toshiro Maseda (Anime Sheet Music) (Musescore File).mscz | ||
Hollybrook – What I Wouldnt Give | ||
Hollywood Harmony (Musical Wonder and the Sound of Cinema) by Frank Lehman (Book) | ||
Holst, Gustav – The Planets IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity | Holst, Gustav – The Planets IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity | |
Home Alone – Holiday Flight – John Williams | ||
Home Recording For Musicians For Dummies by Jeff Strong (eBook) | ||
Hoobastank – The Reason | ||
Hook – Flight To Neverland – John Williams | ||
Hook – I Remember – John Williams | ||
Hook – The Arrival Of Tink – John Williams | ||
Hook – The Stories Are True – John Williams | ||
Hooked on Easy Piano Classics | Hooked on Easy Piano Classics | |
Horace Silver – Opus de Funk piano solo transcription sheet music | ||
Horace Silver Complete Vol 1 The 50s | Horace Silver Complete Vol 1 The 50s | |
Horace Silver Complete Vol 2 The 60s1 | Horace Silver Complete Vol 2 The 60s1 | |
Horace Silver Complete Vol 3 The 70s | Horace Silver Complete Vol 3 The 70s | |
Horace Silver Tribute (jazz sheet music transcriptions) | Horace Silver Tribute (jazz sheet music transcriptions) | |
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How To Play The Piano (By Mark Hambourg) (1922) | How To Play The Piano | |
How To Practise On The Piano – Reflections And Suggestions (By Heinrich Ehrlich) (1901) | ||
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Howard Shore Dwarf Song From The Hobbit. An Unexpected Journey | ||
Howard Shore In Dreams From Film The Lord Of The Rings The Fellowship Of The Rings | ||
Howard Shore Jacob Black Theme From The Twilight Saga Eclipse Piano solo | ||
Howard Shore Jacobs Theme From The Twilight Saga Eclipse Piano solo | ||
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Howard Shore – The Lord Of The Rings Complete Trilogy (Piano & vocal) | Howard Shore – The Lord Of The Rings Complete Trilogy | |
Howard Shore Rohan From The Lord Of The Rings | ||
Howard Shore The Lord Of The Rings | ||
Howl’s Moving Castle – Promise Of The World (Musescore File).mscz | ||
Howl’s Moving Castle (Musescore File).mscz | ||
Hupfeld H. As Time Goes By (as performed by Frank Sinatra) | As Time Goes By Frank Sinatra | |
Hurt (Christina Aguilera) |