Strollin horace silver pdf

Columbia had far more cash and a much broader distribution network than the old Blue Note ever had. Indeed, a fan of Silver for years, I knew nothing of those recordings until I began carefully researching sources. It is common knowledge that, especially in the post- Blue Note recording industry, the amount of money spent on advertising in trade journals like Downbeat and JazzTimes, is directly related to the amount of positive press and critical acclaim an artist may receive Herring.

It was reviewed well. In , Horace Silver receives a Grammy's Presidential Merit Award, saying at the ceremony upon acceptance: "I've tried to do my best to bring you the music that God has given me. Thankfully, you've accepted it and hopefully it will continue to live on, bless, and uplift people" Silver website. Today, Silver is 84 years old. He has varying degrees of lucidity and mobility, and is in a special-care facility under the careful supervision of his family, primarily his son Gregory Bridgewater, Brecker, Richmond, Harrell, Maupin.

By all appearances, his music-making days are over for good. According to Bridgewater and the other musicians interviewed, Silver is a true innovator, and not just an imitator.

Silver had apparently fully absorbed all that came before him and created something truly unique to supplement pre-existing jazz traditions. This is hard, if not impossible, for a non-musician a writer, critic, or academic to do.

There are problems portraying jazz history as a linear string of stellar soloists. Additionally, the process of how first-tier improvisers develop their innovations, and the fact that similar discoveries can be occurring simultaneously by different individuals in different parts of the world, can be glossed over.

The way a new style develops is rooted in an inexplicable blend of wide- ranging variables. At one time, Parker knew hardly any songs all the way through, and was infamously once thrown off the stage for his bad playing and ignorance of the tradition. He did not achieve his genius without first absorbing musical and cultural data from many other people and experiences. History books rarely mention the influential locals who taught legendary players like Bird, just as the influence of Tyner on Coltrane, or of Silver on Blakey is often hidden to some students and the vast majority of the lay public.

Every great innovator stands on the shoulders of those who came before them. Nobody creates something completely unique without borrowing from a wide range of pre-existing data. Interpersonal interaction is too complex to suggest that people create something entirely new of their own as if in a vacuum. The criterion of judging greatness in jazz needs to be addressed. If we accept that the overriding criteria for being a legendary jazz musician is determined by the extent to which they develop their own distinctive voice built upon a foundation of traditional knowledge, then Silver deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Monk, Tyner, Tristano, Blakey, Roach, Parker, Young, Basie, Ellington, etc.

Yet each generation has produced relatively few individuals with something so distinctive, personal, and recognizable that when you hear the music not only do you know whose music it is but it also seems that you know that person.

These are the ones who will always be remembered. Italics in original. He had his own unique sound and way of expressing himself both on and off the bandstand Maupin, Brecker, Bridgewater, Shew, Coolman, Richmond. What is perhaps most fascinating with Silver is the speed, determination, and single-mindedness with which he evolved.

Many of his contemporaries at the time seemed to think so too. When, in , Leonard Feather took a poll among leading musicians, asking them to identify who was the most notable rising piano star, they chose Silver.

Liner notes to Silver Blue. He has been plagued by various physical problems throughout his life. Bouts with rheumatism, arthritis, and wrist sprains affected his piano playing to varying degrees at different times Gardner. Ok, what did the critics contribute? He can play fast, intricate runs when he wishes.

Like Sonny Rollins, Silver has found a way to make his instrument sound loud without actually playing loudly, for his touch is surprisingly gentle and controlled. In a real sense, he is a virtuoso, albeit of a completely different type than Oscar Peterson.

Because of his unique virtuosity, no one can play the blues such as Filthy McNasty and Senor Blues with the down-home sound more convincingly or effectively.

One is to create a unique musical style or sound, and the other is to know and respect the traditions. With regard to the second, Silver was also quite special.

Silver is self-taught, learning to play things off records, starting with boogie- woogie piano and eventually, solos by Teddy Wilson, Bud Powell and others. Silver often expressed his respect for traditions. He took the learning of them very seriously, but he also remained open-minded enough to embrace a variety of cultural influences and musical elements in his work. It is not much of a stretch, of either the facts or the imagination, to consider Silver one of the first fusion musicians.

Interviewees confirmed what critics have also said: Silver is always appreciative of what other musicians are doing. He has an open-minded approach and is always listening. He is often influenced by new places and experiences, incorporating them into his music. And he most definitely did not immerse himself in the music of Japan when he wrote the four originals that appear on this disc.

As an African-American with Cape Verdean roots, Silver may have had a head start on many of his peers, but it was his open ears and uncommon gift for melody, structure, and small-group orchestration that allowed him to incorporate foreign elements with such success. Silver could fire band members who got high with heroin, just as Dizzy Gillespie could in his big band. Neither bandleader tolerated substance-abuse, especially if it was a noticeably negative distraction to the music they played nightly Bridgewater.

Silver seems extraordinarily brave for having the clarity and independence of mind to express such ideals at a time when the behavioral norm was the opposite. Horace was very advanced. People missed it, a lot of people missed it.

Interviewees confirmed this. The aspect distinguishing Silver described above may have contributed to some media marginalization. Writer and jazz critic Dan Morgenstern responded about whether Silver got the amount of press coverage he deserved for his contributions to jazz.

He was too clean! He was just a really nice guy who cared about one thing: his music. Musicians commenting on the same question were more generous, since they, generally speaking, allotted Silver 1st-tier status as an innovator. Tragic figures like Parker and Baker, and those who become hero-like by overcoming their addictions, such as Blakey, Davis and Coltrane, appear to get more press than artists who avoid addictive-behavior altogether.

By his clean living, Silver could have been slightly overshadowed by these types of tragic or hero-like figures. Williams correctly traced the essence of some Silver work to older Basie recordings. Bebop was considered art music, whereas the entertainment-oriented older music was not. The large majority of critics, and Silver himself, feel that bebop is his primary stylistic influence.

Silver said he loved and imitated the swing era. After all, Lester Young was one of his all-time favorites. Silver also proudly proclaimed fondness for early blues and boogie-woogie.

It seems that when he added more dated musical elements to bebop, his style evolved into the highly popular, funky, folksy, bluesy one he is famous for, and that is when his first, most vocal critical detractors seemed to materialize. They got so sophisticated that it seemed like they were afraid to play the blues, like it was demeaning to be funky. And I tried to bring that. He felt he quite naturally merged cultural, musical, and environmental influences, creating an uplifting musical representation of how he feels about the world.

One could argue he is one of the three principal composers in the entire history of jazz, along with Monk and Ellington. He wrote many songs completely different in structure to Sister Sadie or The Preacher, the hits most often identified with his funky, hard-bop style.

These are all quite unique song form structures. Liner notes. Most can easily hear the first when listening. It develops an inner momentum and drive which enables it to both veer in the direction of uniformity and also to veer away from the envisaged point of completion.

The last aspect of style to be mentioned is by no means the least important. Silver elevated the art of orchestration, particularly of quintet writing, to a level unsurpassed to date. Using his piano like a big band, everything about his playing seems compositional and lyrical in nature. He learned how to voice very well. He learned how to utilize two horns to the fullest extent.

That's one thing I learned from him. Instead of hearing a whole lot of horns he'd take two horns and get just as much out of two as you can get out of three in most cases. He would utilize everything. He just turned out to be a hell of an arranger. He was an influential composer and orchestrator, bandleader, businessman, and for some, an excellent model of healthy, spiritual behavior. Parker has influenced many players, including Silver, but has not contributed much on how to succeed in the music business, lead a band, or even a life for that matter.

Silver made significant impacts on people besides how to play an instrument or compose a song. Bridgewater said Silver taught him how to put the music together professionally in terms of the mechanics, preparation, and live performance of it, and also how to maintain energy and health while on the road.

Maupin said Silver taught him things about harmony, chord voicings, and about communicating with the audience. Brecker also said that in his own long history with music, he never met a leader who rehearsed as much as Silver. This influenced Brecker to rehearse his later groups a lot.

Tools Silver used compositionally can be found in much of my writing, though like Silver, I did not reflect on such things until after a song was finished being composed. As Bridgewater suggested, without Silver, we may not have known about a Hancock, or songs like Watermelon Man. Perhaps, the two most famous piano players that publicly acknowledge their debt to Silver are Chick Corea and Joe Zawinal. Each wrote forewords for Silver books. John, Gregg Allman and A. Maybe one could add to that list Cecil Taylor and hence, indirectly, the avant-garde.

All agree that Silver was an important founding father of a new genre in jazz, one that continues to have an obvious and positive impact on the music and musicians of today, over 50 years since the birth of hard-bop. I propose we permanently devalue the linear, hierarchal structure used to define jazz history that is currently taught by academics and formulated by critics and historians.

In its place, we should adopt a new criterion for determining greatness - one that reflects the ideals of those musicians who actually create and extend the art form in the first place. This, Silver has done, and as well as anyone else in history.

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Hal Leonard Corporation. Cuscuna, Michael. Retrieved Feb. Constructing the jazz tradition: Jazz historiography. Black American Literature Forum. DeVeaux, S. New York: W. Dobbins, Bill. New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Add cover. Report error. The Horace Silver Quintet.

Blue Mitchell with Strings and Brass. Slide Hampton. Shirley Scott. Jack McDuff with Gene Ammons. Dexter Gordon Quartet. Tommy Flanagan. Emily Remler. The Phil Woods Quartet. The Sonny Costanzo "Big Band". Gene Bertoncini, Michael Moore. The Peter Compo Quintet. Charles Mountford Trio. Ed Thigpen Ensemble. Alan Broadbent. Gene Harris Quartet. The Lanny Morgan Quartet. Joris Teepe - Don Braden Quintet. The Greg Chako Trio. The New George Shearing Quintet.

Andy LaVerne. John Simon Trio featuring Don Patterson. Charles Earland. Hendrik Meurkens. Anders Lindskog. John Wilkins. Horace Tapscott. The Dalton Gang.