November 6, 2023
By Dan Ouellette
In 1997, I met up with Horace Silver at his Southern California home in the Malibu hills with a scenic vista of the Pacific Ocean in the distance. I was interviewing him about the resurgence of his career at the time for a feature in DownBeat. The amiable and down-home pianist and long-time Blue Note Records artist, closing in on his 70th birthday, talked about his latest recordings for Impulse Records, 1995’s The Hardbop Grandpop and 1997’s A Prescription for the Blues. A Silver revival was also in the air given Dee Dee Bridgewater’s brilliant 1995 album Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver.
We conversed about his songwriting prowess that had yielded multiple jazz classics from his tenure with Blue Note, such as “Song for My Father,” “The Preacher” and “Cape Verdean Blues.” Horace told me that many of his songs were reminiscent of the family gatherings in Connecticut in his childhood when his Cape Verdean father and uncle would play songs of their home on stringed instruments. As for his creative process, Horace said he would sit at the piano and work up his rhythm-based music as if the tunes were coming from some other place.
A longstanding Blue Note recording artist, Horace launched with the label as a leader in the Jazz Messengers collective he formed in the early ‘50s with drummer Art Blakey. They were exploring beyond bebop to the more accessible and R&B-fueled style of jazz: hard bop. An early album was 1955’s hard bop powerhouse, Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers. After four years with Art, Horace broke off from the Jazz Messengers and set up his own musical agenda. He continued recording for Blue Note until 1979 when the label issued his Silver ‘n Strings Play the Music of the Spheres.
In retrospect over his Blue Note career, a jazz scribe asked him once who his favorite collaborators were. Horace replied, “One of the greatest bands I ever led was the Junior Cook-Blue Mitchell band with Louis Hayes on drums and Gene Taylor on bass.”
That band automatically conjures up Horace’s 1959 Blue Note gem, Blowin’ the Blues Away, a seven-pack of some of his most resonant songs performed by his simpatico band members (the quintet performs on five of the songs, while Horace plays in a trio configuration on two).
The title track blows open the album with a fast-paced tempo featuring a gusting trumpet solo by Mitchell, a rippling R&B-flavored piano run and then a call-and-response between Mitchell and tenor saxophonist Cook. The full band is also on fire for the speeding “Break City” with Horace stabbing at notes and taking his signature bluesy pianistic spins. Hayes gets the opportunity to let fly in his solo.
The first ballad of the collection is the melodic “Peace,” a soothing, introspective song Horace later gave lyrics to in 1970 for That Healin’ Feelin’ with Andy Bey doing vocal duties. Incidentally, a very young Norah Jones in her 2001, pre-Come Away With Me, six-song Blue Note EP, First Sessions, covered the tune brilliantly with a solo voice/piano rendition. Jones later reprised the song on her 2016 album Day Breaks with a quartet featuring Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone, John Patitucci on bass, and Brian Blade on drums.
The full band lets out all the stops on Horace’s funky soul number “Sister Sadie” delivered with lively and playful gusto, followed by the most unusual sounding tune of the album, “The Baghdad Blues,” which is another cooker with a subtle inflection of Middle Eastern music.
Horace strips the quintet down to a trio for the lyrical and grooving “The St. Vitus Dance” which features Horace’s zip and zap-spiced piano, and the gorgeous album finale, “Melancholy Mood,” where he sinks into a pensive and reflective piano zone.
With Blowin’ the Blues Away being heralded as one of his finest hours, Horace, with his favorite ensemble, displays not only his talent as a bandleader but also his remarkable ability to deliver memorable songs. When the album closes, I suggest you let fly the leadoff “Blowin’ the Blues Away” again. You’ll be mighty pleased you did.
Get the Classic Vinyl Edition of Blowin’ the Blues Away on the Blue Note Store
