Like many young pianists at that time he was enthralled with bebop innovator Bud Powell, and he could play car chase tempo tunes with the best. Silver settled in Gotham and quickly made an impression. (It was customary for star bandleaders to travel solo from town to town and hire local musicians for their gigs.) Silver made such an impression on Getz that the saxophonist hired him on the spot to be part of his steady band in New York City. In 1950, he was hired for a gig with the great saxophonist Stan Getz, who was playing nearby. Horace Silver was born in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1928 and was a standout performer on both piano and saxophone in high school. Listen to the best Horace Silver pieces on Apple Music and Spotify. “His was an approach that put dance up front once again like the old days but reached forward harmonically at the same time.” “Horace put the fun back in the music,” wrote jazz piano great Mike LeDonne, upon Silver’s death in 2014. It was hard to be downcast with Silver’s music playing in the vicinity. He often said that music should bring joy and make people forget their troubles. On a basic level, Silver was a genius with melody. It was also the basis for many subsequent jazz-adjacent musical genres and countless hip-hop samples. Hard bop took the stylistic innovations of bebop and combined them with vernacular styles like blues, gospel, and a wealth of Latin, Brazilian, and West African influences. Among jazz fans, he’s perhaps best known as the founding father of the genre known as hard bop, an exuberant, finger-popping style that was ascendant in the late 50s and early 60s. He’s one of the most influential pianists and composers of his time. “Song for My Father,” however, is just one of many illustrious musical chapters in the long and storied career of Silver. The swirling horn lines toward the end of “Song for My Father,” are replicated in multitracked vocals on Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” from his 1973 album Innervisions. One of Silver’s best-known tunes, “Song for My Father,” is built on a catchy two-note bass line that Walter Becker and Donald Fagen famously borrowed for Steely Dan’s highest-charting single, 1974’s “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.” That wasn’t Silver’s only influence on a Billboard top 20 song from that decade, though. The great pianist and composer Horace Silver has been heard by hundreds of millions of music fans who are probably unaware of his presence.
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