Horace Silver Quintet - 6 Pieces of Silver (2021 Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series 180g Mono Reissue LP)

Horace Silver Quintet - 6 Pieces of Silver | Vinyl LP, 2021 Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series Reissue (BLP 1539, 180g Mono, Optimal) 

• Silver’s first album after leaving the Jazz Messengers, recorded in a single session on November 10, 1956 at Van Gelder’s Hackensack studio, with Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, Doug Watkins and Louis Hayes
• The album that introduced “Señor Blues”, one of Silver’s most enduring compositions and a rare jazz single, alongside five more Silver originals and one standard, mixing hard bop with Latin rhythms and gospel inflections
• Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series: all-analog mono mastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal Media in Germany

Horace Silver co-founded the Jazz Messengers with Art Blakey in the mid-1950s. When the partnership ended, Silver took three of the Messengers with him: Donald Byrd on trumpet, Hank Mobley on tenor saxophone, and Doug Watkins on bass. Louis Hayes, who was 19, joined on drums. The result was a quintet that played with the hard-driving energy of the Messengers but added the Latin rhythms and gospel-tinged piano voicings that became Silver’s signature. 6 Pieces of Silver was the group’s studio debut, and it is the album that put Silver on the map as a bandleader. “Señor Blues” opens side B with a dark, Latin-inflected groove that became a hit single and entered the jazz standard repertoire. “Cool Eyes” opens side A with a hard-swinging line. “Camouflage” has a stop-start rhythm that shows Silver’s ear for compositional structure. “Enchantment” leans into the Latin feel. Two tracks, “Shirl” and “For Heaven’s Sake” (the album’s only non-Silver composition), are trio performances without Byrd and Mobley, giving the rhythm section room to breathe.

The musicians on this session were about to become leaders in their own right. Byrd would go on to record prolifically for Blue Note through the 1960s. Mobley’s own Blue Note catalogue stretches to more than twenty albums as a leader. Silver himself recorded for Blue Note for 27 years, the longest tenure of any artist in the label’s history, from his first trio session in 1952 to Silver ‘N Strings Play the Music of the Spheres in 1979, the last recording date before the label went dormant. Produced by Alfred Lion. Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder. Cover design by Reid Miles. Photography by Francis Wolff. Liner notes by Leonard Feather. This 2021 Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series edition is all-analog mono, mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal Media in Germany.