There are one or two things I'd like to work on, but in the meantime, here's some classic Horace Silver, just in case you thought I was getting a little too comfortable with the West Coast jazz.
1 comment:
Anonymous
said...
That's Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Junior Cook on tenor, Louis Hayes on drums. I don't recognize the bass player - probably Gene Taylor, given the other personnel.
Instrumentally, I think Mitchell was by far the most interesting soloist in that group. I think Silver is a wonderful composer and bandleader, but he is not among my favorite piano players. He seems surprisingly disjointed at fast tempos, and he is quick to go to his gimmicks (not particularly clever quotations, for example) when he is out of ideas. He even does it at times in his compositions (his Lover Come Back to Me-based line Quicksilver, done with Blakey and Brownie on "One Night at Birdland," has that dreadful Oh You Beautiful Doll bit in it.
But Silver did have that rarest of talents in the jazz world, one that is nearly nonexistent today - he composed memorable tunes. Senor Blues is a great example -- even though it is a "simple" blues harmonically, it has a great hook and it uses the unusual 6/8 meter so naturally that it doesn't stick out to the casual listener as an experiment in any way, just as non-musicians hearing Desomond's Take Five are unaware of the unusual meter.
One of the biggest reasons for the loss of popularity of jazz is the lack of memorable tunes. Doodlin', Senor Blues, Song for My Father, Nica's Dream - these are songs the casual listener can remember and recognize. I can do without The Preacher, which went too far in that direction, but I sure wish jazz woulkd produce another composer whose tunes could slip into a jukebox without resorting to pop cliche.
1 comment:
That's Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Junior Cook on tenor, Louis Hayes on drums. I don't recognize the bass player - probably Gene Taylor, given the other personnel.
Instrumentally, I think Mitchell was by far the most interesting soloist in that group. I think Silver is a wonderful composer and bandleader, but he is not among my favorite piano players. He seems surprisingly disjointed at fast tempos, and he is quick to go to his gimmicks (not particularly clever quotations, for example) when he is out of ideas. He even does it at times in his compositions (his Lover Come Back to Me-based line Quicksilver, done with Blakey and Brownie on "One Night at Birdland," has that dreadful Oh You Beautiful Doll bit in it.
But Silver did have that rarest of talents in the jazz world, one that is nearly nonexistent today - he composed memorable tunes. Senor Blues is a great example -- even though it is a "simple" blues harmonically, it has a great hook and it uses the unusual 6/8 meter so naturally that it doesn't stick out to the casual listener as an experiment in any way, just as non-musicians hearing Desomond's Take Five are unaware of the unusual meter.
One of the biggest reasons for the loss of popularity of jazz is the lack of memorable tunes. Doodlin', Senor Blues, Song for My Father, Nica's Dream - these are songs the casual listener can remember and recognize. I can do without The Preacher, which went too far in that direction, but I sure wish jazz woulkd produce another composer whose tunes could slip into a jukebox without resorting to pop cliche.
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