Customer Reviews

Song for My Father

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Long-time jazz pianist Horace Silver released this gem in 1964 on Blue Note. It is an unusual session as it is a split one. Part of the album contains Silver's classic quintet of Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Junior Cook on tenor sax, Gene Taylor on bass, Roy Brooks on drums, and of course, Silver on piano. The other part has Silver on piano, Carmell Jones on trumpet, Joe Henderson on tenor sax, Teddy Smith on bass, and Roger Humphries on drums. It is a "cut and paste" effort, but once you listen to the music, you can't tell a difference in their personnel. That is how flawless this album is. The remastered version by Rudy Van Gelder is awesome in its sound quality.

The title track is obviously one of jazz's all-time great pieces, but "Calcutta Cutie", "Que Pasa?", "The Kicker", and "Lonely Woman" are all outstanding, heck the whole album is great. Henderson, in particular, is at the top of his game and he absolutely gives the best tenor sax solo of all-time in the title track.

This is a perfect album to get into jazz and should be one of your first buys after "Kind of Blue" and "Blue Train". It is also a good introduction to Horace Silver, one of the great underrated artists in jazz history.

If you like this Silver album, check out "Blowin' the Blues Away" and "Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers".

Horace Silver was one of those postwar jazzmen who belied the idea that you had to blast off into nether-netherland to make jazz. But he also put the lie to the idea that making your music accessible was equal to making it somewhere between limp and listless. Not for nothing did Silver and his fellow hard boppers from the mid-1950s (Art Blakey in particular) make a conscious effort to yank the roots back into the music; these men knew what they were doing and damn near prevented jazz from getting too hip for its own britches, most likely because they seem to have made a fetish out of keeping it swinging.

Still, "Song For My Father" is a set for anyone's music library, even one who isn't disposed ordinarily to jazz. The critic who says the thousand and one subsequent bad rock albums trying to get hipped to the jazz that were inspired by this album and especially its warm title cut has an excellent point, but "Song For My Father" would stand out as Silver's unquestioned (almost; it's really hard to put "Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers" in the back seat, after all) masterpiece even if no one had decided to rip off the title track's insinuating bass line or otherwise wring its clever leavening of Brazilian rhythm with harder Carribbean percussive. The group sounds so warm and probing yet so bloody danceable throughout that, when you're finished with it, you may have a hard time getting the people sharing it with you to stop dancing. No one wastes a note or a percussive; no one sees a space as an abomination; no one trips over another; and, there is a remarkable sympatico between the musicians that few enough ensembles achieve, never mind make into an art.

The album is, of course, far more than its luminous title track; the Silver group rollicks through a breezy set showing their usual meld of gospel and blues to the pure bop, playing steadily and not shrinking when lyricism pours through. Horace Silver was probably the most underrated jazz leader of his time. Here's the proof.

Interesting... if one of the main reasons for the great space and vast praise garnered by the reviews for Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" is that it combines brilliant musicianship with tunes that are "accessible" by a much wider audience than pure jazz aficionados then why such little comparative interest in a record with similarly good credentials ?

While the playing on "Song For My Father" may not rank up there with Davis' & Coltrane's quite exceptional virtuosity on "Kind of Blue", Joe Henderson's sax, Carmell Jones' trumpet and Horace Silver's piano breaks push the album into the same rarefied and rare league: high quality jazz with enormous popular appeal. The trick ?... catchy lead riffs and backing rhythms that drive the songs forward while allowing often highly complex instrumental breaks to emerge effortlessly from and back into strong underlying melodies. The result?... a suite of songs that will grab space on your CD player over and over again and, in "Song For My Father" itself one of the most unforgettable jazz tracks ever made.

Horace Silver's Song For My Father has stood the test of time, for nearly 45 years. And with each listen, it sounds and becomes alive every time it enters the cd tray/turn table.

Song For My Father, a tribute to Silvers father, a violinist and guitar player is featured here on the cover. And he was the inspiration for the piece and the album. As the album notes, Silver's father, John Tavares Silver, Portuguese and his mother of Irish and Negro descent are clearly the two inspirational figures for this classic recording.

Perhaps Joe Henderson and Silver himself were among the most known at the time, and today for that matter. Carmell Jones is on trumpet. Teddy Smith on bass, and Roger Humphries, a young kid, on the drums, make up the quintet.

"Song For My Father," actually turned out to be a hit, and it did good for Blue Note Records. It's samba like rhythm, is the primary rhythmic basis for the majority of the album.

Silver and four swing, "The Natives Are Coming," with ease. And except for the opening note of "Calcutta Cutie," the piece is basically a trio number. Another samba based tune.

Clearly as Henderson's ideas flow on "The Kicker," he was obviously maturing in his sound and his style. As they do on the latin tinged, "Que Pasa." Horace takes his cohorts, Teddy Smith, and Rog Humphries on a musical journey for "Lonely Women," omit Henderson and Jones.

This album is a classic Blue Note recording. It is as every bit fresh as Miles Davis's Kind Of Blue, and John Coltrane's A Love Surpreme. This is a SURPREME album!

I surmise the older kats already have fell in love with this recording. But for the younger jazz fans, this is one of the "must listen to" albums in the Blue Note catalogue.

...after Kind of Blue (of course). I bought this album for the title track (which was also hi-jacked by US3) and then since found myself enthralled with all of the tracks on it. Great melodies, haunting horn arrangements. I keep inserting it into my CD shuffles. Amazing that it is nearly 40 years old.

The opening piano part of "Song For My Father" is instantly recognizable as a Steely Dan song, but Horace Silver of course came first. The album achieves the jazz Holy Grail of excellent songs and excellent playing. The playing is wonderful throughout, especially in Horace's piano on "Lonely Woman". Even though Horace isn't one of the bigger jazz names of his era, this album is certainly one of the bigger jazz albums of the era.

I'm a jazz listening novice, but I must say I can't get this CD off my player. It ALWAYS sounds soooo great. The title track's "hook" is permanently burned into my brain for all eternity, and I'm grateful. This CD is a rare bird in that it seems beloved by both hard-core jazz snobs as well as your average music listeners. Well worth the money folks- you can't go wrong with this purchase.

This is right up there with Blakey's Moanin' and Clark's Cool Struttin'. This cd reissues one of bops greatest sessions by pianist Silver, who is as funky as he can be, the title track is swinging, funky and ever so slightly latin, hard bop! A great cd every track a gem.

I first heard the title track on my local Public Jazz Radio station, and I sat in the parking lot (in my car!) for ten minutes listening for the artist & title. I enjoy this album because of its obvious cutting-edge influence on so many subsequent musicians I follow. Finds like these encourage me to spend more time searching for the source of my favorite contempory music. It matters not if you think you don't like Jazz, this is music for everyone.

This is definitely a jazz classic, and with the advertised "24-bit remastering", not to mention that it is part of Blue Note's Rudy van Gelder series, I was ready for a sonic treat. However, it was obviously mastered too loud. Looking at the waveform with Cooledit, there's obivously a fair amount of peak clipping on the CD. What a shame to do this to such classic music.