Horace Silver - Interview Part 2 - 1969

In 1969, Horace Silver was a guest on Dan McClosky's All Night Jazz program on a Bay Area radio station. This program features the second hour of the interview.

Horace Silver was an absolutely outstanding jazz pianist, composer, and arranger who helped pioneer the hard bop style in the 50's. He worked as a sideman at first and then he co-founded the Jazz Messengers with drummer Art Blakey. Quoting Wikipedia, "After leaving Blakey in 1956, Silver formed his own quintet, with what became the standard small group line-up of tenor saxophone, trumpet, piano, bass, and drums. Their public performances and frequent recordings for Blue Note Records increased Silver's popularity, even through changes of personnel. His most successful album was Song for My Father, made with two iterations of the quintet in 1963 and 1964."

Horace composed almost all of the tunes on his albums, and always seemed to come up with something new and creative with each new release.

His bluesy style and hard playing piano made for great jazz recordings. He was truly one of the giants in jazz. He passed away in 2014 at age 85, leaving us with a superb collection of jazz compositions. (For more on Horace Silver, including his discography, see Wikipedia).