Search This Blog

1954 - November 13

Horace Silver And The Jazz Messengers – November 13 1954 

 

Richard Cook - Blue Note Records – Secker and Warburg 2001 

Another Blue Note record date brought together the blueprint for perhaps the greatest small group in post-war jazz. Alfred Lion offered Horace Silver another date as a leader and this time the pianist asked if he could add horns to his trio. Silver had been leading a group at Minton's Playhouse with the tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley and bassist Doug Watkins, and he brought both men to the date, along with the ubiquitous Blakey and a second front-liner, trumpeter Kenny Dorham. On 13 November 1954, they cut four titles at Van Gelder's Hackensack studio. The session went so productively that Lion reassembled the same group for another date the following February, which again resulted in four titles. 


Leonard Feather: Horace Silver Volume 3 Liner Notes BLP 5058 

HORACE WARD MARTIN TAVARES SILVER has enjoyed the many fruits of fame-without-fortune since his name first appeared on a Blue Note LP a couple of years ago. He has been hailed as a new star on the air, in magazines and in newspapers (but never yet, to my knowledge, between bound covers). He had been seen in theatres and at the Newport Jazz Festival and in many night clubs (but never yet at a five-figure weekly salary). He has even won, through the courtesy of Down Beat, a critics' poll — but in the other kind of poll, the people's poll, he hasn't yet even made the top ten. Let us be brave and recall that Gillespie, Parker, Dameron and Milt Jackson all won a critics' poll (in Esquire) years before the public began to observe them. 


Horace Silver, then, is a succes d'estime, which sometimes means that one is on one's way to becoming a succes d'argent. Of course, all the cards are stacked against him. Horace was not born in any of the correct areas for a Jazzman: he is not from New Orleans or Kansas City or ever from some exotic land like England or Canada. Moreover, he has never keeled over in a smoky dive; there is a long history of sanity in his family; and he comes from Norwalk, Connecticut. As you know, a great jazz star just doesn't come from Norwalk, Connecticut. Most unglamorous. 


Despite all these handicaps, a hard and hardy core of followers has been perceptive enough to realize that Horace Silver is as fine a modern jazz pianist as will be found around. In particular, those who have observed him on such LPs as Blue Note 5018 and 5034 with his own trio, 5021 with Lou Donaldson, 5024 with Howard McGhee, 5040 with Miles Davis and 5037, 5038, 5039 at Birdland, have by now probably succeeding in amassing their biblical Thirty Pieces of Silver (Matthew XXVI 15). 


Here, then, are four more Pieces of Silver, this time in his first quintet date under his own name. Everybody present agreed that this was one of the most relaxed sessions in years, and, as befits a relaxed session, the cats stretched their limbs and their lines and Alfred Lion threw the stop-watch out the window. 


The lines, actually, are all Silver originals, and all in a basic groove that reminds us how effectively modern musicians, if their artistry is of a genuine jazz nature, can keep faith with the real is a word that might well be roots of this kind of music. "Funky" applied to the products of this date. 


Kenny Dorham, Horace's trumpeter for the occasion, will be familiar to Blue Note collectors who have already heard him on sessions with Thelonious Monk and Lou Donaldson. Hank Mobley, the tenor man, is new to Blue Note but familiar to fans who have followed his activities with Dizzy Gillespie and other small combos around the East. Doug Watkins, the bassist, is fresh on the scene, a Detroiter and a protégé of Art Blakey. Art himself, by now an almost inseparable session-mate of Horace's, again lends his authoritative percussive presence in both rhythm and solo contributions. 


The session starts with a fast unison theme, Room 608 named for Horace's hotel room (Horace is hewing to the correct jazz line here, for hotel rooms have made jazz tune titles ever since Benny Goodman cut Room 1411 in 1928). The ensemble is followed by two choruses of trumpet that will serve to convince you of Kenny Dorham's true ability. Seldom has he played with such fluency and assurance, in a style that seems to blend the best elements of both Gillespie and Davis. After two typically well-constructed choruses by Horace there is a series of cute unison breaks and piano fill-ins before Mobley takes over for a swinging solo. A rousing drum chorus precedes the return to the theme. 


Creepin' In sets a wonderful minor mood—slow, slinky and funky. It is better listened to than described. Listen to it. 


Doodlin' is a 12-bar blues in which the tenor creeps below the trumpet at whole-tone intervals in the first 8 bars. Note, too, the humorous use of staccato notes in bars 8 and 9. Note more particularly Horace's superb comping behind the Dorham and Mobley solos, in which he sometimes gets a 12-to-the-bar feel. 

Stop Time contains only 16 bars of fast unison theme and gives everybody a chance to accomplish what seems to me to be their best work on the entire session: Dorham, Mobley, Silver and Blakey all sit in the spotlight successively and successfully. 


Listening to this session, with its beautiful reflection of the relaxed mood that produced it, I found myself wishing that I were a millionaire, or at least a tax-free foundation. If I were either, I would hire Horace Silver on a year-round basis to play for nobody but me and a few selected house guests. 


On second thought, I think I would have Horace as a house guest, and any time he didn't feel like playing we would both sit around and listen to Bud Powell. Either way, it would be a pleasant life. 


Down Beat 1 June 1955 Volume 22 Issue 11 

This is the group currently working as the Jazz Messengers—Silver, Art Blakey, Kenny Dorham, tenor Hank Mobley and bassist Doug Watkins. Mobley has worked in the past with Dizzy Gillespie’s small unit, and Watkins is a young musician from Detroit who is a Blakey protege and also has been highly recommended by Billy Taylor. 

The qiuntet swings hard in this session with the best solo work by Silver and the long underrewarded Dorham. Mobley fits in emotionally and rhythmically, but his ideas and tone are not outstanding. All four blowing lines are by Silver, and all four make for the funkiest sides of the month. If this group could now spend more time on organizing their blowing strength more originally, and if they could add more diversity of themes and structural approaches to their material, this unit would be a total gas. As it is now, it digs deeper than most into the emotional roots of all jazz, traditional or modern. Good recorded sound. (Blue Note BLP 5058) 




Leonard Feather: Horace Silver And The Jazz Messengers Liner Notes: BLP 1518 

LATE in 1954 a quartet under the leadership of Horace Silver was playing at Minton’s Playhouse. As a result of earlier successes on the Blue Note label, (hear BLP 1520 for these first trio dates) Horace’s star was in the ascendancy and Alfred Lion was anxious to record more of his brilliant, hard driving piano. 


It was decided that this date would present Horace as a combo leader for the first time. He responded by getting Kenny Dorham and Art Blakey to join himself and two of the members of his Minton’s quartet, Hank Mobley and Doug Watkins. Thus the Messengers were born, or reborn. Actually the name had been used before by Art Blakey when he led a 17 piece band on occasional gigs, and a septet on Blue Note, both in the late Forties. The present Messengers have laid permanent claim to the name by their length of existence and their musical excellence. In most informed, aware jazz circles they are considered to be the most muscular, spiritually rewording group to come along in the past two years. 


In this LP, which represents the first and the second sessions recorded by the Messengers, Horace has supplied seven of the eight originals. Proceedings start with a fast unison theme, Room 608, named for Horace’s hotel room (Horace is hewing to the correct jazz line here, for hotel rooms hove made jazz tune titles ever since Benny Goodman cut Room 1411 in 1928). The ensemble is followed by two choruses of trumpet that will serve to convince you of Kenny Dorham’s true ability. Seldom has he played with such fluency and assurance, in a style that seems to blend the best elements of both Gillespie and Davis. After two typically well-constructed choruses by Horace there is a series of cute unison breaks and piano fill-ins before Mobley takes over for a swinging solo. A rousing drum chorus precedes the return to the theme. 





Session Information 

Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; Horace Silver, piano; Doug Watkins, bass; Art Blakey, drums. 

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, November 13, 1954 

tk.3, Room 608, Blue Note 45-1631, BLP 5058, BLP 1518 

tk.6, Creepin' In, Blue Note 45-1631, BLP 5058, BLP 1518 

tk.8, Doodlin', Blue Note 45-1630, BLP 5058, BLP 1518, BST 84325 

tk.10, Stop Time, Blue Note BLP 5058, BLP 1518 

No comments:

Post a Comment

1956 - March 12

Kenny Burrell – March 12 19 56     Leonard Feather: Kenny Burrell Volume 2 Liner Notes   KENNY BURRELL is a guitarist summa cum plectrum. H...