Pianist Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver was the heart and soul of the hard bop era, helping to form the influential Jazz Messengers, and composing many blues and gospel-flavored songs that have become part of the jazz canon. For more than fifty years, Horace Silver wrote some of the most enduring tunes in jazz while performing them in a distinctively personal style, combining clean and sometimes humorous right-hand lines with the rumble of darker left hand notes. Precious few jazz musicians have had a greater impact on the contemporary mainstream than Horace Silver. The hard bop style that Silver pioneered in the ’50s is now dominant, played not only by holdovers from an earlier generation, but also by fuzzy-cheeked musicians who had yet to be born when the sound fell out of critical favor in the ’60s and ’70s.

Silver’s Señor Blues (upper left) is a latin-influenced piece, more than a little reminiscent of many Duke Ellington compositions. Recorded in Paris in 1959, Horace is joined by Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Junior Cook playing sax, Gene Taylor on double bass, and Louis Hayes at the drums. In 1964, his “5Tet” shows a softer side with Pretty Eyes (upper right). If my references serve me correctly, Horace Silver plays piano, Woody Shaw is on trumpet, Joe Henderson is playing tenor, Bob Cranshaw is on bass, and Roger Humphries is at the drums. Song for My Father (lower left) is an unapologetic Silver tribute to his dad. Inspired by the Cape Verdean folk music he heard from his Portuguese-born father, the tune has become a standard in his repertoire. During a 1968 Rotterdam concert, this rendition was recorded with Horace Silver on piano, Randy Brecker playing trumpet, Bennie Maupin on tenor, John Williams on bass, and Billy Cobham playing drums. Finally, (lower right) Horace pays homage to the late, great trumpet player Blue Mitchell with a composition entitled Blues for Brother Blue, recorded in 1994 in the Netherlands by Silver’s big band –– The Silver Brass Ensemble.