1.You Go To My Head
2. Rifftide
3. The Things We Did Last Summer
4. I’ll Remember April
5. Lou’s Blues
6. Billie’s Bounce
7. The Way You Look Tonight
Horace Silver (piano), Lou Donaldson (alto sax), Jimmy Schenck (bass), Lloyd Turner (drums)
rec. Live in New York, USA, probably at Birdland on September 14, 1953
SOLAR RECORDS 4569945
[78:45]
“I prefer a small group. Jazz is improvisation and in a small group there is plenty of space for everyone to stretch out and blow” so said pianist Horace
Silver. Fans of Silver will need no persuasion to buy this disc as it is of previously unissued tracks, including Silver’s only known version of You Go To My Head, and every track demonstrates why he is such a star in the jazz firmament. “I found Brubeck's work interesting...But when I
heard Horace, now that was a thing which turned me around and finally fixed my idea of piano playing.” so said no less a pianist than Cecil Taylor of the
man who, along with Art Blakey, created the Jazz Messengers and pioneered the genre of hard bop. The other unusual thing about this session is that it is
of standards (apart from Lou’s Blues) whereas Silver almost always played his own compositions, many of which have become standards in their own
right. Additionally some of the versions of these tunes are rare in that they were recorded only a couple of times by either Silver or Donaldson and in the
cases of Rifftide and I’ll Remember April are the only known versions by Donaldson, making this an historic issue on several counts.
Bassist Jimmy Schenck is virtually unknown and appears to have only ever been recorded on six occasions while Lloyd Turner is a drummer who’s completely
shrouded in mystery as no-one seems to be able throw any light at all on him (has anyone ever asked either Silver or Donaldson who at 85 and 87
respectively are still active!).
The fact that it was Art Blakey, active since the 1940s, who chose to team up with Horace Silver to form the Jazz Messengers and to pioneer hard bop, shows
the esteem that Silver was held in right from the start of career. This career had only really taken off the previous year to when this session was
recorded despite him leading his own trio since 1950 when he was discovered by Stan Getz who was playing with Horace’s group.
There is not a single dull moment on this disc which is fabulous from start to finish and at a generous almost 80 minutes is a lesson that could be learned
by some other labels I have recently reviewed that could only be described as short changing buyers with, in one case, considerably less than 40 minutes!
The opener and shortest track is a sublime reading of You Go To My Head which, as noted above, is Silver’s only known recording of it. It has
Donaldson dominating in beautifully laid back form with a silkily dreamy sound perfectly in keeping with the tune. Next comes Rifftide which has
an interesting if disputed history in that though it was first recorded by Coleman Hawkins who is credited with having composed it Thelonious Monk who had
played with Hawkins the previous year always claimed the tune was his and later re-recorded in as Hackensack. All I can say is that the piano part
as played here has all the elements one associates with Monk though Silver still makes it his own.
The Things We Did Last Summer
, a Julie Styne-Sammy Cahn composition takes the temperature back down after the wonderfully upbeat Rifftide turning in another beautifully
pensive performance and the only version of it by Silver and Donaldson. I’ll Remember April sees us once again in fast tempo territory with
another unique take, the only one of it Donaldson ever recorded, which has Silver weaving in various references to other tunes in amongst his superbly
swinging and extensive piano solo, something that always makes me smile. His solo is so long in fact that it is more a trio with sax simply bookending the
tune at either end but that won’t displease Silver’s myriad of fans.
Lou’s Blues
gives Donaldson plenty of chance to make his solo contribution on his own composition which remained in his repertoire for at least another 30 years and
one can easily understand why it did and that it has found favour with others too. In this tune we also get an opportunity to hear the tantalisingly
mysterious Lloyd Turner showing that he’s a drummer who we should all know a great deal more of.
The penultimate track on the disc is Billie’s Bounce that great Charlie Parker original during which Silver again plays his ‘guess the tune’ game
with several more references to others making brief appearances along the way. In the middle of this we get a nice long solo from Jimmy Schenck whose solid
bass is a great anchor and makes one sad that his recording career was so short. Donaldson also plays the same game as Silver with a few references of his
own thrown in including a short burst of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee in his nicely measured solo. The Way You Look Tonight
from the great American Songbook closes this session in fine style with Donaldson showing his disarming musicality in a solo which occupies the majority of
the track and when the end finally arrives it is sad to come it does so.
There are only two gripes here; Silver could have given more time for the others “...to stretch out and blow” since he does dominate for most of the time,
and the sound is rather muddy and it would be nice if someone could manage to insert more treble in. Fans of Horace Silver, however, of whom I’m one, are
not going to complain much about a disc which has remained unreleased for over 60 years but has finally emerged to delight us all.
Steve Arloff
CD Reviews
SOLAR RECORDS 4569945
