A History Of Blue Note Records: 1953

Horace Silver Volume 2 / Art Blakey – Spotlight On Drums – November 23 1953

Richard Cook - Blue Note Records – Secker and Warburg 2001 pp 59-60

[Alfred] Lion’s curiosity for new music was enthusiastic and wide-ranging.; As Blue Note’s business began to grow, he and [Francis] Wolff realised that they had to have a regular turnover of new material if the label was going to keep its place in the newly expanding world of jazz microgroove records. They were still stuck with their 78 rpm and ten-inch LP formats, still reluctant to go over to twelve-inch albums, but at least, at the beginning of 1954, they released their first 45 rpm single, BN 45-1626. Bizarrely, it featured two titles from a Horace Silver session, ‘Message From Kenya’ and ‘Nothing But The Soul,’ which were features for Art Blakey's drumming: on the first title he duetted with percussionist Sabu Martinez, but the other was all Blakey (a nice tribute, though, to the drummer’s importance in the Blue Note hierarchy). As jukeboxes began to go over to the new seven-inch format, singles would assume an increasingly important place in Blue Note’s visibility in the marketplace.

Leonard Feather: Horace Silver Volume 2 / Art Blakey – Spotlight On Drums Liner Notes

ALMOST a year has elapsed since the release of the first Horace Silver long playing record (Blue Note BLP 5018). The year has seen new horizons open up for the brilliant 25-year-old pianist from Norwalk, Conn. While his LP debut was winning the plaudits of reviewers and fans, Horace enlarged his audience in Birdland and the country's other leading jazz clubs, playing with Lester Young and other noted combos. In recent months he has been allied with a new group formed by Art Blakey, the phenomenal drummer featured with him in the present set of selections.

Of the six piano solos in this new LP, three are based on popular songs of a few years ago — How About You, I Remember You and Day In Day Out. Endowing them with his original rhythmic and harmonic changes when he embroiders the melody in the opening chorus, he proceeds to improvise on the chord pattern of the tune, and in each case the overall result, in effect, is as personal as if he had woven the fabric himself instead of merely cutting the cloth. Of the three, I Remember You owes the most to the original melody, providing Horace with an exceptionally fine framework. Note especially the beautiful coda on this long and delightful performance.

The other three piano solos are Silver originals. Silverware, a perfect example of a moderate-tempo performance that achieves an easy, rocking beat, is based on the well known F-to-G Flat pattern originally identified with a famous swing standard.

Opus De Funk is a traditional 12-bar blues. As its title hints, it combines the "funky" approach of an old-time blues with the sterling Silver touch and technique. Buhaina, the other original, is named for Horace's trio-mate, Abdallah Ibn Buhaina. Better known to his fans as Art Blakey, Buhaina is one of the many leading musicians who have embraced the Mohammedan faith.

A final word for the Third Man of this unique set of performances. Percy Heath has been praised many times before, both in our Blue Note comments and in every publication that deals with jazz. Never has his work been more discreet and dependable than in his accompaniments to Horace's solos here. A Heath bass performance is a study in metronomic stability. The Horace Silver Trio is indeed an equilateral triangle.

On Message From Kenya and Nothing But The Soul Horace steps aside to let the spotlight fall on the drums.

Message From Kenya teams Art Blakey 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 Rodriguez' 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 Moses 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 diminuendos.

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 is the man who won the critics poll on Down Beat last year, and it seems inevitable that the public will shortly follow suit by acclaiming him no less enthusiastically.

Ran Blake: The Trio Sides BN LA 474-H2 1975

"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.

Don Heckman: Horace Silver Liner Notes – BN LA 402-H2 1975

Several years ago I participated with Horace Silver in, of all things, a television talk show. The program was devoted to the state of jazz in and around New York City, but the host, for all his good intentions, had a knowledge of jazz that was bounded on one side by Stan Kenton and on the other by the Dukes of Dixieland. Yet despite the spaced-out absurdity of some of his questions, Silver always managed to phrase a reply that made the query seem pertinent. Like his music, Silver can be soft-spoken yet to the point, pliant yet sinewy.

At the piano his loose-limbed demeanor tenses into an appearance not unlike what one critic described as an "inverted fish hook." He swarms over the keyboard, popping out low note accents with fingers that pulse with life of their own, smacking each chordal comp with the intensity of a karate chop. And through it all, through all the crisp accents, the music flows with the kind of danceable swing that everyone keeps saying jazz no longer possesses. They're wrong, of course, because Horace Silver's music always has made the foot tap and the body move—even in the very beginning.

He has come a long way from the early fifties (1954, to be exact) when he led a quintet at a date that provided the name for one of jazz's most hardy groups, The Jazz Messengers; the recording was called "Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers," and also featured the prominent leader of the subsequent installments of the messengers, drummer Art Blakey. In September of 1956 Silver stepped out to form his own group and has been his own man ever since, retaining his powerful musical identity through all the vagaries of avant-garde jazz, rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues. Personnel has changed over the years, but Silver's instincts for finding and using stellar jazzmen in his groups has remained constant.

The first editions of the Silver quintet included such gifted players as trumpeter Art Farmer, tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, bassist Teddy Kotick and then-18 year-old drummer Louis Hayes. They were followed over the years by trumpeters Blue Mitchell, Carmell Jones, Woody Shaw, Randy Brecker and Charles Tolliver, by saxophonists Junior Cook, Joe Henderson, Benny Maupin and Stanley Turrentine, and by rhythm sections that included bassists Gene Taylor, Teddy Smith, Bob Cranshaw and John Williams and drummers Roger Humphries, Roy Brooks, Billy Cobham and Mickey Roker; add the names of the numerous other players who have passed through the Silver groups and one has a virtual all-star line up of New York jazz musicians.

The earliest track here, "Opus De Funk," is from a trio date in 1952. The tune quickly became a classic, of course, performed by everything from small jazz groups to Woody Herman's roaring big band. Despite the murkiness of the sound, Silver's briskly propulsive piano style obviously is well established in his head and in his fingers even at this point, when he still was in his early twenties. He clearly was more than just a good young bebopper, and "Opus De Funk" points out his future compositional direction with its mixture of bop articulation and blues-touched melody.

Down Beat 14 July 1954 Volume 21 Issue 14

One of the most consistently energizing of the younger pianists, vigorously backed by Percy Heath and Art Blakey. Also included are the Blakey drum solo and the Blakey-Sabu duet previously starred (Down Beat, May 19). It pains my flinty, New England soul to give another five-star rating this month, but Mr. Silver cannot be denied. I assure you that five-star ratings are pried from me only after fierce struggling, but there is simply an unusual quantity of better-than-good original jazz being issued these days. (Blue Note BLP 5034)

Down Beat 19 May 1954 Volume 21 Issue 10

Soul is a dynamically absorbing solo by Blakey. On Kenya, Art is joined on conga drums and vocal by Sabu (Luis Martinez). The story of the number, according to Leonard Feather’s notes for a forthcoming album in which it will be included, “was first told to Art by Moses 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.”

It’s an exciting performance with or without the courtship bit. Sabu is 24, works usually with El Diablo, but has recorded before with June Christy, Dizzy, and Mary Lou Williams. He’s also played with Valdes, Morales, and senor Charles Parker. Sabu recently returned from Al Romero’s expedition to South America on which Don Elliott was also included. This is his first large-scale record break, and he surely wails. (Blue Note 1626)

Cash Box – December 26 1953 Ran into Horace Silver, the sensational piano stylist whose many etchings can be heard via Blue Note Records and learned that any minute now we can expect a whole batch of new disks from his allstars. Tells me he’s just cut a new six side LP which also features our fave hide beater Art Blakey and the very steady beat of Percy Heath’s big bass...