Horace Silver
Song For My Father

The fifties and sixties produced tons of great jazz. With personalities like Miles, Coltrane, Herbie Hancock around, it’s hard to see how it could have been otherwise. And so it ends up that more than worthy musicians are somewhat forgotten, let's take Horace Silver for example.

A melodically and harmonically highly skilled pianist, with a natural funky streak capable of making even stones dance. Listen to the title track "Song for my father", in my opinion, one of the most enchanting jazz pieces ever written.
Apparently, one of the key influences on this pianist was the folk music of Cape Verde island, passed down to him by his father, of Portuguese descent. Which for me remains an intriguing curiosity, considering even Capossela admitted to being a fan of the "Morna Capoverdiana," as he calls it. It's a pity that collections are not easily found around. If anyone knows of any, it would be nice if they posted about it.

Returning to the current album, one breathes a particularly fresh and effervescent latin-jazz-bossa atmosphere. The danger of jazz is notoriously ending in a self-indulgent solo that goes nowhere, only indicating that the player is very talented but which doesn't mean anything, notes scattered randomly. This danger is completely avoided in this small masterpiece, characterized in my opinion by an exquisite balance between composition and improvisation (for a modern ear perhaps leaning more towards the former). In short, a beautiful album that relaxes but doesn't lull to sleep, full of great ideas and influences. A real pity it was forgotten.

I apologize for the brevity of the review, but the four trivialities I could add would do little justice to this music.