Horace Silver's conversational autobiography is short, earthy, and cookin', much like his music. It provides an overview of his entire life, from his origins in Connecticut, growing up with an African American and Cape Verdean father, the local forms of racial discrimination in New England, and his musical career, which encompassed a key period in the history of jazz in the mid-20th century. While most people I have spoken with have long pigeon-holed Silver into the hard bop/Blue Note vein, if one reads this autobiography, one gains a more nuanced view. For instance, Silver was a fan of Jimmie Lunceford's group, one of the major black swing bands in Harlem. Silver also imbibed Cape Verdean musical influences from watching the dances held at his home when his father and his compatriots performed for the local Cape Verdean community in Norwalk, Connecticut. Even more surprising, Silver's post-1970 recordings experimented with electric keyboards, gospel, spiritualist, vocals, and larger ensembles.
Silver's piano playing was also profoundly shaped by Lester Young (in addition to Monk, Bud Powell, and Nat King Cole), so he was always capable of smooth, sweet, and a 'cool' style. Indeed, Silver used to play the tenor saxophone, although he later focused on piano and composition. Moreover, the Horace Silver Quintet was, to paraphrase the editor of the autobiography, innovative and important in its use of breaks, shout choruses, countermelodies, interludes, and background riffs. This becomes evident when listening to recordings of Silver between 1955-1970, which contains more than enough material to interest those less pleased by the bluesy dominance of much of Silver's style or compositions.
However, what does the autobiography reveal about Silver the man and his times? Through the influence of his spiritualist beliefs and pleasant nature, Silver refrains from making negative statements about nearly everyone who appears in the book. And the list is quite long, including famous musicians such as Miles Davis, singers of the caliber of Freda Payne and Miriam Makeba, or various relatives and sidemen. Since he did not drink or abuse drugs, but experienced the racial stereotyping and targeting of black jazz artists , he was critical of the impact of narcotics on musicians and the stereotyping of black musicians as drug users or purveyors, especially in Philadelphia. He also experienced, to a certain extent, many of the same problems Charles Mingus highlighted in his fictionalized autobiography, mainly the exploitation of jazz musicians, racial discrimination from law enforcement, and record labels seeking to control or profit from their musical labor (although Blue Note was, for the most part, a positive experience for Silver).
Most surprising is Silver's skepticism of terms like hard bop to describe his music. He did not see his music of the 1950s or 1960s to be a "new style," although the Silver Quintet and the Jazz Messengers undeniably defined a particular jazz aesthetic. While most jazz aficionados have likely not followed up on Silver's music after 1970, he was clearly versatile, desired to try out new ideas, and sought to surround himself with talented young musicians. While this later became a problem, especially as he saw students from jazz programs as lacking improvisational skills and harmonic knowledge, it is too reductionist and unfair to restrict Silver to his music from 1955-1960. Personally, I prefer his work of the 1950s and 1960s, and I find his original compositions to be clever, funky, sophisticated, and intriguing for their rhythmic sense. "The African Queen" or "Song for My Father" are not alone as indications of Silver's seemingly simple yet complex work.
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