Customer Reviews

Silver's Serenade

5 star:		(5)
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One of the finest Hard Bop jazz recordings in history, perfectly realized. Five stars is not enough! At the height of his writing, arranging, leading, and playing, Silver assembled one of his best Quintets ever in 1963. It doesn't get any better than this timeless classic, especially with Alfred Lion producing and Rudy Van Gelder recording in his New Jersey studio during the incredible 1960's post-bop Blue Note era.
These mindblowing performances are the bookend to the other outstanding Six Star album, "The Tokyo Blues". Even the elegant exotic swinger "Dragon Lady" seems to be a carryover from Silver's trip to Japan and the other album that resulted. If you have never heard the fabulous trumpeter Blue Mitchell, this CD is a great place to start since he is in excellent form throughout. Junior Cook is one of the finest tenor saxists to synthesize a truly personal sound out of a Rollins/Coltrane blending (Charles Lloyd is another). Roy Brooks and Gene Taylor are rock solid throughout with perfect accents pushing the players to new levels. And Horace is dazzling in both 'comping' and soloing.

The 'Pieces D'Resistance': The beautiful strolling ballad "Silver's Serenade" is one of Horace's best compositions and has been reverberating in my mind for decades: it's a striking song with excellent changes setting up a series of breath-taking solos by Blue, Junior, and Horace. The unison voicing of the ensemble at the beginning and end are the likes of which you may never hear better in your life. And 'Beware', this beautiful theme and solos may haunt you for the rest of your life. It's that good!

"..Nitty Gritty" might seem to be another Blue Note 'funk' exercise but it isn't, it's 'blue lightning in a romping groove' wrapped around a cunningly crafted head. Again, great song, great solos, especially Horace. The CD concludes as things reach a fever pitch with the AWESOME "Nineteen Bars" (really, 19 bars!!) and heroic solos from all concerned, including Roy Brooks. Horace's left hand is a dead giveaway to his identity to the uninitiated listener, as his right hand dances all over the keyboard. This gets my highest recommendation: Buy this one NOW and also buy "Tokyo Blues" and "Song for My Father" to complete this CD trilogy. All have seamlessly excellent top drawer playing representing the very best of jazz of any era. Thank you, Horace Silver!!

In my opinion, this album is right up there with Song for My Father. Each track, as a previous review said, is paractically flawless. Tthe first four tracks are very laid back, colorful and interesting rhythmically and melodically. The head to "silver's Serenade" is just wonderfully composed. The last track, 19 Bars, is a fast, smoking tune. A hard song to solo over, a 19 bar pattern is far from usual, but the soloists handle it perfectly. this album is really underrated. You will not be dissapointed with Silver's Serenade, especially if you have heard other Horace Silver almbums.

It's hard to think of many artists in any genre who were as consistently, dependably, flawlessly brilliant as Horace Silver in the 1950s and '60s. This album is no exception, just a typically strong, rock solid effort with all original compositions and magnificent support. Junior Cook's intense tenor testimonial on 'Dragon Lady' is the highlight of highlights.

Consisting of a beautiful, loping swing tune (the title cut), two exercises in funk, a piece of exotica and a classic hard-bop cut, this LP comes from the 5th and final year of the Cook/Mitchell front line. They are tight as a drum on this under-appreciated record but, probably, yearning for new and freer turf. Horace was well-known for exercising tight reins on his horses.

Unlike other contemporaneous releases there are no latin pieces (!) or modal ones, and the hard bop of the past (e.g., Cookin' at the Continental) is present only on 19 Bars. Remnants of his fateful trip to Japan show up in his piano improvisations and in Dragon Lady. But the highlights are two absolute gut-level pieces of funk: Nitty Gritty (the title of his future auto-biography) and Sweetie Dee. Silver's ability to fashion the funkiest harmonies known to man is astounding. Not simply blues or gospel chords but tone-aggregates that no one before (or since) has been able to come within a country mile of.

Our modern-day post-boppers are great, technically proficient and Berklee-trained, but incapable of producing anything like this.

Oh my goodness! The Horace Silver Quintet is at it again. From Silver's Serenade to Nineteen Bars, there is absolutely no flaw. If your a jazz fan you must check out Dragon Lady. Very hypnotic, it will have you look for a dragon lady. One of the best Horace Silver Albums.