(hat tip: Schmoochie)

Spent a lazy weekend kicking back with the bf, reminiscing about the music that made the biggest impacts on us Way Back When. ‘Horace Silver’, says the bf. Oh, yeah, then a lazy weekend afternoon arguing about just which of Horace Silver tracks was The Best – The Preacher? Doodlin’? Opus de Funk? Filthy McNasty? Nica’s Dream? Sister Sadie?

Silver isn’t one of those names that have impacted on the American consciousness in the same way Nat King Cole or Billie Holliday or Louie Armstrong or Bennie Goodman or Ella Fitzgerald have – names that even those who don’t know their music still recognise – but he pioneered Hard Bop jazz that fused gospel, rhythm and blues and jazz into an art form unsurpassed then or since. He composed numerous arrangements and his recordings were almost exclusively his own original works. For half a century, his music has influenced younger musicians and he himself has promoted and championed succeeding generations of musicians. And not just jazz; Steely Dan’s biggest hit, ‘Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number’ used the bass riff that opens ‘Song for My Father’. Silver has always been conscious of and active in tense social and cultural issues, via the medium of jazz music in the 60s and early 70’s with his three albums, United States of Mind, and has spent much of the last couple of decades exploring deeper philosophical questions through his music.

In recent months, it’s been a depressing litany of RIPs of major musical artists, and I’m so happy to be able to say Horace Silver is still with us. So sit back and enjoy what the bf and I finally agreed was our favourite tune, Senor Blues, recorded here in 1959.