Horace Silver

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Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver (September 2, 1928 – June 18, 2014) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, particularly in the hard bop style that he helped pioneer in the 1950s. Silver got his break on piano after playing tenor saxophone and piano at a Connecticut high school, when his trio was recruited by Stan Getz in 1950.

Silver soon moved to New York City, where he soon became known as both a composer and a bluesy performer.

Frequent sideman recordings in the mid-1950s helped even more, but it was his involvement with the Jazz Messengers, co-led by Art Blakey, that brought both his writing and playing most attention.

Silver's first hit, "The Preacher," was on their Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers album.

Silver founded his own quintet after leaving Blakey in 1956, releasing what became the standard small group line-up of tenor saxophone, trumpet, piano, bass, and drums.

Silver Note Records' public appearances and regular recordings helped boost the band's success, even as a result of staff changes.

Song for My Father was his most well-received album, produced with two iterations of the quintet in 1963 and 1964. Several changes occurred in the early 1970s: Silver disbanded his band to spend more time with his wife and to concentrate on writing; he also included lyrics in his recordings; and his interest in spiritualism grew.

The last two of these were often combined, resulting in commercially unprofitable releases such as The United States of Mind.

Silver left Blue Note after 28 years, founded his own record label, and cut back his touring in the 1980s, relying in part on royalties from his compositions for income.

He returned to major record labels in 1993, releasing five albums before gradually fading from public view due to health issues. Silver went from bebop to hard bop by putting emphasis on melody rather than complex harmony, and then combining clean and often amusing right-hand lines with darker notes and chords in a near-performance left-hand rumble.

His compositions emphasized catchy melodies, but they also contained dissonant harmonies.

Many of his songs, including "Doodlin'," "Peace," and "Sister Sadie," became jazz standards that are still popular.

His illustrious legacy extended to other pianists and composers, as well as the growth of young jazz players who performed in his bands over the course of four decades.

Early life

Silver was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, on September 2, 1928. Gertrude's mother, Gertrude, was from Connecticut; his father, John Tavares Silver, was born on the island of Maio, Cape Verde, and migrated to the United States as a young man. She was a maid and performed in a church choir; he worked for a tire company. Since John, who lived to 6 months and Maria, who was stillborn, Horace had a much older half-brother, Eugene Fletcher from his mother's first marriage, and was the third child for his parents.

Silver began playing the piano in his youth and received classical music lessons. Cape Verde's father taught him the folk song. After hearing the Jimmie Lunceford orchestra, at the age of 11, Silver became interested in becoming a guitarist. His early piano influences included boogie-woogie and the blues, pianists Nat King Cole, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Art Tatum, and Teddy Wilson, as well as some jazz horn players.

In 1943, Silver graduated from St. Mary's Grammar School. In the Norwalk High School band and orchestra, he performed Lester Young-influenced tenor saxophone from ninth grade. Although still at school, Silver performed on both piano and tenor saxophone. He was refused military service by a draft board investigation that found that he had an overly curved spine, which also interfered with his saxophone playing. Around 1946, he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, to work as a pianist in a nightclub.

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Later life and career

Silver's break came in 1950, when his trio backed saxophonist Stan Getz at a Hartford club: Getz adored Silver's band and invited them to tour with him. Silver's debut on tape in December 1950 was also on display at a quartet date. Silver was recalled as pianist in Getz' band after about a year, and he moved to New York City. He quickly established a following, based on his compositions and bluesy playing. He served with tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins before encountering altoist Lou Donaldson, with whom he developed his bebop knowledge. In 1952, Donaldson's first album on Blue Note Records came out, with Silver on piano, Gene Ramey on bass, and Art Taylor on drums. Another Blue Note quartet session was scheduled for Donaldson, with Art Blakey replacing Taylor, but the saxophonist withdrew and producer-owner Alfred Lion offered Silver the studio time for a trio recording later this year. The majority of the tracks were Silver originals, and the narrator stayed with Blue Note for the next 28 years as a leader.

Silver was also recording as a sideman. He appeared on sessions led by Sonny Stitt, Howard McGhee, and Al Cohn in 1953, and the following year, he appeared on albums by Art Farmer, Miles Davis, Milt Jackson, and others. In 1954, Silver received the Down Beat critics' first piano player award and appeared at the first Newport Jazz Festival, substituting John Lewis in the Modern Jazz Quartet. Powell's early 1950s recordings show that he had a major pianistic influence, but that had dwindled by the middle of the decade.

Silver and Blakey co-founded the Jazz Messengers in New York, a cooperatively run company that was first recorded under a variety of leaders and names. Hank Mobley on trumpet, Kenny Dorham on trumpet, and Doug Watkins on bass were all recorded in late 1954 and early 1955 and were released as two 10-inch Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers shortly afterwards. Silver's first hit, "The Preacher," was included on this album. Unlikely in Silver's career, recordings of concert appearances were also released at this time, including quintets at Birdland (1954) and the Café Bohemia (1955). This collection of studio and concert recordings was pivotal in the creation and defining of hard bop, which blended elements of blues, gospel, and R&B with bebop-based harmony and rhythm. The new, funky hard bop, which helped establish Blue Note as a profitable company, was widely distributed in the marketplace.

Silver's last recordings with the Jazz Messengers were released in May 1956. He left Blakey after one and a half years, in part due to the drug use in the band, which Silver did not want to be involved in. After receiving invitations of work from club owners who had not heard his songs, Silver formed his own long-term quintet. Mobley (tenor saxophone), Farmer (trumpet), Watkins (bass), and Louis Hayes were the first members of the line-up. The quintet, which had a diverse line-up, went on to record, supporting Silver in his brand's growth. In the opinion of critic Scott Yanow, he wrote almost all of the band's songs; one of these, "Select Blues," "officially put Horace Silver on the map." Silver "won over the audience with his affable demeanor and all-action approach in concert. The sweat poured out, with his forelock brushing the keys and his feet pounding, he crept over the piano.

Silver's appearance on Sonny Rollins, Vol., comes after more than a dozen sideman recording sessions in 1955 and a similar number in 1956-57. In April 1957, he was his last for another king as he began to concentrate on his own band. This site featured Junior Cook (tenor saxophone), Blue Mitchell (trum), Gene Taylor (bass), and either Hayes or Roy Brooks (drums). Finger Poppin's first album came out in 1959. The album The Tokyo Blues was born as a result of Silver's visit to Japan early in 1962. Silver's quintet had influenced a number of bandleaders and was one of the most popular jazz entertainers by the 1960s. "Blowin' the Blues Away," "Juicy Lucy," and "Sister Sadie" were also released for jukebox and radio play. Serenade, Silver's sixth and final album, was released in 1963.

Silver created music for a television commercial for the drink Tab around this time. Silver spent three weeks in Brazil, an event he cited with growing his curiosity in his roots as a child. Joe Henderson created a new quintet this year, with Memell Jones on trumpet and tenor saxophone. This band performed the majority of Silver's best-known album, Song for My Father, which debuted at No. 2. In 1965, 95 on the Billboard 200 was introduced to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. Changes in recording and personnel, which sometimes extended the band to a sextet, continued in the mid-1960s, with some extending the band to a sextet. The Cape Verdean Blues were charted at No. 1 in 1966, and are ranked at No. 1. 130 people were killed in the current edition. The liner notes to the album Serenade to a Soul Sister (1968) included lyrics (written but not sung), indicating a renewed concern for Silver. Bennie Maupin, trumpeter Randy Brecker, bassist John Williams, and drummer Billy Cobham were among his quintet members who were touring Europe in October and November 1968, which was sponsored by the US government. They also produced "You Gotta Take a Little Love," one of Silver's last quintet albums, "You Gotta Take a Little Love." The Penguin Guide to Jazz's retrospective review of Silver's most popular Blue Note recordings was that they were of a high quality: "each album yields one or two themes that pique the imagination, each has a particularly stunning ballad, and they all lay back on a heap of solid riffs and workmanlike solos."

Silver's regular band disbanded around 1970 to concentrate on writing and spending more time with his wife. He met Barbara Jean Dove in 1968 and married her two years later. Gregory, the family's son, was born. Silver also became involved with spirituality from the 1970s.

At this point, Silver's songs included lyrics in more of his compositions, but they were not always thought of as doggerel or proselytizing. That Healin' Feeling, the first album to feature vocals, was commercially ineffective, and Silver needed to insist on Blue Note executives' help in releasing music in the same, new style. They committed to a new two albums that featured vocals and Silver on an RMI electric keyboard; the three albums were later released as The United States of Mind; but they were soon removed from the catalog.

In 1973, Silver formed a touring band. Michael and Randy Brecker were involved in this collection. Silver's fame among young jazz musicians around this period was that he was "a little – not commercial, but not quite the real deal [in jazz]," according to saxophonist Dave Liebman. Silver and his family decided to move to California around 1974 after a robbery at their New York City apartment when they were in Europe. In the mid-1970s, the couple divorced.

He recorded Silver 'n Brass, the first of five Silver 'n albums, but no other instruments were included in the set. His band's members continued to shift, and it continued to exclude young musicians who made telling contributions. Tom Harrell, a trumpeter who lived from 1973 to 1977, was one of those who remained from 1973 to 1977. Silver's pattern in the late 1970s was to tour for six months a year. Silver 'n Strings' was his last Blue Note album, which was released in 1978 and 1979. His tenure with the brand was the longest in the brand's history. By Silver's account, he left Blue Note after its parent company was sold, and the new owners were not interested in promoting jazz. "Ideto's dedication to the spiritual, holistic, and self-help elements of music" in 1980, he wrote. Emerald, a symbol for straight-ahead jazz, was also created at the same time, but it was short lived.

Guides to Growing Up in 1981, which included recitations from actor and comedian Bill Cosby, was the first Silveto publication. Silver said in the same year that he had cut his touring to four months a year so he could spend more time with his son. This also meant he had to audition for new band members on an annual basis. He continued to write lyrics for his latest albums, but they weren't always included on the album. The song titles reflected his spiritual and self-help beliefs; for example, "Seeing with Perception" and "Moving Forward with Confidence" were among the Senses from 1983's Spiritualizing the Senses. There's No Need to Struggle (1983) and The Continuity of Spirit (1985) were among the next albums. Dave Douglas, trumpeter Dave Douglas, and saxophonist Vincent Herring were among his band members' appearances in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in 1987. Douglas said that Silver rarely gave concrete verbal instructions about the music, preferring to lead by example. A revival of interest in more traditional styles of jazz in the 1980s has largely passed Silver, and Silveto's albums were not critical success. In 1988, it was Music to Ease Your Disease's last issue. Silver did not often perform at jazz festivals in the early 1990s, but his desire to tour was limited as he gained no royalties from his songbook.

In Los Angeles, Rockin' with Rachmaninoff, a musical work starring dancers and narration that was written by Silver and choreographed and directed by Donald McKayle, was staged in 1991. In 2003, Bop City Records released a video of the work. Silver dropped the attempt to make his own label work in 1993 and signed to Columbia Records. This also signaled the return to mainly instrumental releases. It's Gotta Be Funky, the first of these, was a rare big band album. Silver came close to death shortly after its introduction: he was hospitalized with a previously undiagnosed blood clot problem, but Pencil Packin' Papa was released in 1994, which featured a six-piece brass section. He appeared on Dee Dee Bridgewater's album Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver earlier this year.

Silver was given the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters in 1995, and the following year was named to Down Beat's Jazz Hall of Fame and received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.

He moved from Columbia to Impulse!

The Hardbop Grandpop (1996) and the quintet A Prescription for the Blues (1997) are among the records where he made the septet. Both Grammy Awards were given to the former as an album for the best instrumental performance, individual or group, as well as "Diggin" on Dexter's solo. In 1997, he was ill again, so he was unable to tour to promote his music. Jazz Has a Sense of Humor, his last studio recording was made in the following year. Silver created his own compositions for his later albums, rather than re-workings of previous releases, which was a continuation from his earlier work.

In 2004, Silver appeared with an octet at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York for the first time in four years. Since this, he was not often seen in public. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences awarded him its President's Merit Award in 2005. The University of California Press published Let's Get to the Nitty Gritty: Horace Silver's Autobiography in 2006. Live at Newport 58, a Silver concert fifty years ago, has landed on Billboard's top ten of the jazz chart, according to a 2008 publication.

Silver had Alzheimer's disease when it was first announced in 2007. He died of natural causes in New Rochelle, New York, on June 18, 2014, at the age of 85. He was saved by his son.

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