Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers

WHAT NYMITH SAYS

As a matter of fact, Art Blakey did not begin as the de facto leader of the Jazz Messengers, instead co-founding the group with pianist Horace Silver. Unlike a lot of these guys, Silver understood the importance of melody and most of the tracks on this album have one or more melodic movements that you can easily latch onto.

The highlights match the best melodies with the strongest atmospheres. 'To Whom It May Concern' has a latin-styled backbone and several catchy jazz riffs while 'Creepin' In' has an immediate slinky charm (Hank Mobley never resorts to saxophone shredding, reminding us all why the Belgian instrument was such an awesome invention in the first place).

Art Blakey's finest moment is the too-brief percussive intro to 'Hippy' - he could actually get interesting sounds out of the drum kit, which is why I like him. He gives those eight seconds an almost world-beat sound and gets a cool "wobbling sheet metal" sound out of his later drum solo. Everything else about 'Hippy' is typically hard bop and that sums up the entire album: neat flourishes and ideas spice up proceedings on an otherwise average jazz album. Nothing earth-shattering but all good.

WHAT TICHARU SAYS

Quite a lot to recommend this record. I rated it pretty highly on first listen. The only thing I despair of are all of the drum solos.

On second listen I discover the maniac on drums is none other than Art Blakey which sort of makes sense if you bothered to do any research. I however don't bother much with liner notes and such like, preference being to just listen to the music. If I really want to know the name of the musicians involved I'll go and look it up, but rarely does that happen. In fact I'm only assuming that Horace Silver is a piano player... I really don't care about that stuff.

I like this record because there's quite a bit going on musically. I'd say it even improved on second listen. Most of the changes are pretty sublime. Just occasionally does it sound like they are short of ideas almost exclusively around how to transition from sax solo to drum solo. Tough one that, I do sympathise.

Reading about the album now that I'm writing a review, Wiki says the producer didn't want to include the track "The Preacher" and of course he was absolutely right. I would have insisted they produce some more corkers like the first half of the record. All of side one and the track "Hippy" are outstanding. Based on the first 5 tracks I'd rank this album just shy of Chico Hamilton's Quintet as the best of 1955.

You should listen to this record? Absolutely, some great stuff, exciting performances. Will I listen to it again? Maybe... probably...