Lelia M. Silver

Live Bullet introduced Bob Seger to a wide audience, revealing a rocker of unbridled passion and a songwriter of considerable talent. Prior to its release, Seger had been toiling away, releasing seven albums and touring constantly ever since his debut scraped the national consciousness in 1968…

This live set (recorded at the Village Gate) finds pianist/composer Horace Silver and his most acclaimed quintet (the one with trumpeter Blue Mitchell, tenor saxophonist Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor and drummer Roy Brooks) stretching out on four selections, including his new song "Filthy McNasty." Two shorter performances were added to the CD version of this enjoyable and always funky hard bop session.

Following a series of concert dates in Tokyo late in 1961 with his quintet, Horace Silver returned to the U.S. with his head full of the Japanese melodies he had heard during his visit, and using those as a springboard, he wrote four new pieces, which he then recorded at sessions held on July 13 and 14, 1962, along with a version of Ronnell Bright's little known ballad "Cherry Blossom." One would naturally assume the resulting LP would have a Japanese feel, but that really isn't the case. Using Latin rhythms and the blues as a base, Silver's Tokyo-influenced compositions fit right in with the subtle cross-cultural but very American hard bop he'd been doing all along…

Recorded in 1972, a decade removed from the last of Horace Silver's classic quintet recordings, In Pursuit of the 27th Man has never been regarded as one of the pianist's prime releases, which likely explains why Blue Note took this long to make it available on CD. But the album, which moves gracefully between quartet performances featuring vibraphonist David Friedman and quintet numbers featuring the young Brecker brothers (Randy on trumpet and Michael on tenor saxophone), has its distinctive charms. While maintaining the crispness and sense of adventure with which he has always signed his music, Silver and bands ease through some of his most appealing melodies. Songs such as Weldon Irvine's "Liberated Brother" have the early '70s written all over them, but even in those cases their light-handed lyricism and boppish vitality keep them fresh. Friedman's idiosyncratic sound adds a sense of mystery to the music, which, with Bob Cranshaw on electric bass and Mickey Roker on drums, never lacks for a solid and soulful center.

Horace Silver is not only important because of his contributions as a pianist/composer; he's also been a first-rate talent scout (much like Miles Davis, Chick Corea, and Art Blakey). From Donald Byrd to Joe Henderson to Tom Harrell, so many of Silver's sidemen have come to be recognized as serious jazz heavyweights. The hard bopper led his share of five-star groups - especially in the '50s and '60s - but if any one Silver combo went down in history as his most important, it was the 1959-1964 quintet with trumpeter Blue Mitchell, tenor saxman Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor, and drummer Roy Brooks. And that cohesive group is the one that Silver leads on Paris Blues, which contains previously unreleased performances from an October 6, 1962, appearance at the Olympia Theater in Paris…

Night Moves was in the pipeline when Live Bullet hit, and wound up eclipsing the double live set anyway, so Stranger in Town is really the record where Bob Seger started grasping the changes that happened when he became a star. It happened when he was old enough to have already formed his character…

Michigan's Bob Seger is an American treasure, but he doesn't get the full respect or attention of, say, Bruce Springsteen or John Mellencamp because he wasn't as visible. His late-'70s prime was pre-MTV, New Jersey-born Springsteen had the fawning support of the New York-based media, and Mellencamp embraced high-profile political causes like Farm Aid and married model Elaine Irwin…

Night Moves was in the pipeline when Live Bullet hit, and wound up eclipsing the double live set anyway, so Stranger in Town is really the record where Bob Seger started grasping the changes that happened when he became a star…