Priceless Silver

Horace Silver - June 1977 (2014) {Promising Music 441212CD}
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© 2014 Promising Music | 441212CD
Jazz / Post Bop / Piano

This set, caught at an open-air concert on a sunny afternoon in Bremen almost 40 years ago, finds the pianist and composer Horace Silver, who died in June aged 85, with a band young enough to be his own children. They are all very good but, with the exception of trumpeter Tom Harrell, every phrase they play has 1977 stamped on it, whereas the themes and the piano-playing bear the Silver hallmark of true originality. A mixture of yearning romantic and slightly hyperactive joker, his musical personality was all his own and fashion had nothing to do with it. He was priceless and is much missed.

The Nashville String Band made six records between 1969 and 1972, featuring Chet Atkins and the musical comedy team of Homer & Jethro with a group of Nashville session musicians. The ten instrumentals range from the very familiar "Colonel Bogey March" (easily recognized by fans of the film The Bridge on the River Kwai) to "Rocky Top," "Red Wing" (a favorite of musical comedy great Spike Jones in the 1940s), and the tearjerker country ballad "Green, Green Grass of Home." Although the session is a tad overproduced with a stingy length of just 24 minutes, and it doesn't sufficiently focus on the solo capabilities of each man, this long out of print RCA LP still has great appeal. One reason is the priceless album jacket, with the three players as gun-wielding masked bandits on the front cover, and smiling unmasked with their instruments in place of guns on the back.