Satuday 16 juli 2022, 17:00 – House of Hard Bop. In 1965 Blue Note releases an album by the pianist Horace Silver, dedicated to his father: Song for My Father. The album gets high marks. Critic Steve Huey: “One of Blue Note’s greatest mainstream hard bop dates Song for My Father is Horace Silver’s signature LP and the peak of a discography already studded with classics (…)”
And for critic Scott Yanow it is one of the 17 Essential Hard Bop recordings.
The album is the product of three days of studio recordings in 1963 and ’64, with varied quintet lineups. We hear Carmell Jones and Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Joe Henderson and Junior Cook on tenor; the basses are Teddy Smith and Gene Taylor; Roger Humphries and Roy Brooks are the drummers. Calcutta Cutie is an AABA songform – A based on an organ drone, and as so often with Silver, a very contrasting B. The atmosphere is ‘mysterious’. Notable: the two brasses can only be heard at the start and finish and in the theme ensembles. They don’t solo. That’s also true for Sighin’ and Cryin’ and Silver Threads Among My Soul.
Lonely Woman and Que Pasa are trios, without brass.
The previous episode about Horace Silver ( Saturday 18th June – click here for the Newsletter and here for the broadcast) was filled with among other things tracks from the album Finger Poppin’ from 1959. Today what’s left over. Although the brass took rather a back seat in Song for My Father, here they really let rip, for example in the up tempo Cookin’ at the Continental.
House of Hard Bop – a programme by hardbop drummer Eric Ineke
(photo: John Tavares Silver)
