Horace Silver interview

[brownie]

Horace Silver was interviewed on the JazzConnection website in conjunction with the release of his new CD 'Rockin' With Rachmaninoff'

http://www.jazzconnectionmag.com/Horace%20...D%20Article.htm

Has anybody heard the album yet?

[agriffith]

Very nice interview! I'm curious to hear that recording.

Thanks for posting that.

[chris olivarez]

Same here thanks for the info.

[Brad]

I'm curious to hear it too. Thanks for posting that. An album with a title like that has to be something to hear.

[Jazz Groove]

I got to hear this recording. I have just about everything Horace ever did as a leader or as a sideman. I was under the impression he had retired. Glad to see he's back.

[Dan Gould]

I saw this at a store in Connecticut over the holidays. Unfortunately I neglected to ask the owner about it (and she went to Norwalk High with Horace). I started to lose interest when I saw that Andy Bey provides vocals on a majority of the tracks-I have a hard time getting into Horace's lyrics and Bey is not a favorite anyway.

[CJ Shearn]

very nice interview, will have to check the recording out sometime--not all that keen on lots of vocals tho. Will have to get some of the essentials (need Song for my Father RVG, buy Finger Poppin again, Blowin the Blues Away, etc) first. Nice to know Horace has a lot of music in reserve. Let's hope he gets to record it.

[chris olivarez]

I also hope that Horace keeps on recording and I really don't mind the vocal forays from time to time.

[JSngry]

If anybody can make those admittedly, uh, "idyosyncratic" lyrics work, it's Andy Bey.

I just wish that Horace would lose the "neo-con" horn players and either go with vets (the sessions w/Red Holloway and/or Eddie Harris work just fine for me, and then some) or young guys who feel a little frisky. But he knows what he wants, I suppose, and his unease w/the Shaw/Washington front line, as well as the later Brecker brothers front line (I've heard a private tape where Michael, who I really don't care for as a rule, is just SCORCHING, but the word is that Horace put the kibosh on that kind of thing, which led to a parting of the ways) tells me that what he wants is not too much, if any, pushing of the envelope, even though his music is more than capable of standing up to some pretty extreme pushing.

But hey, it's Horace Silver, ya'know? It's all good.

[Swinging Swede]

I had read that Horace Silver had retired from playing too. This release doesn't contradict it, since it was recorded in 1991, but look at this part of the interview:

There's more to come! He's currently putting together another recording project that's targeted for April 2004. He didn't care to talk about the particulars of this new project only to say that he has most of the music already written and when that record is released, he'll go out on tour, he said.

I wonder whether he will actually play, or just compose and arrange. I was under the impression that he had decided to stop playing due to a medical condition.

[Dan Gould]

I just wish that Horace would lose the "neo-con" horn players and either go with vets (the sessions w/Red Holloway and/or Eddie Harris work just fine for me, and then some) or young guys who feel a little frisky. But he knows what he wants, I suppose,

Jim,

do you feel that Rickey Woodard is just a "neocon"? Or are you just hoping for someone from the more progressive millieu? Personally, I've dug Rickey's playing for quite a while now, and in fact I just picked up a brand new Marlene Shaw live disc with Rickey and a piano trio. Looking forward to giving it a spin ...

[JSngry]

do you feel that Rickey Woodard is just a "neocon"? Or are you just hoping for someone from the more progressive millieu?

More of the latter.

Woodard's a good player whom I like well enough. Horace's tunes are such that I enjoy them interpreted either with lots of grit (ala the vets) or lots of spunk (ala Joe, Tyrone, etc). The classic Silver front line of Blue & Jr. had both, as did several of their immediate successors, but cats like Woodard, although fine players I enjoy in other settings, don't bring enough of either to really satisfy me in this setting. Although, to be fair to them, Horace hired them, so he likes it, which is what counts, right? And like I said earlier, if what I hear is right, when you take Horace's gig, you play it his way if you want to keep the gig., which is the way the world works, right? Guys like Miles or Mingus who damn near demand that you push them are few and far between. Still, I'd sure like to hear what somebody like Shelley Carroll could bring to the gig. Or Fathead. Or Marchel Ivery.

Or all three.