Artist: Horace Silver

Horace Silver American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, particularly in the hard bop style that he helped pioneer in the 1950s. 

After playing tenor saxophone and piano at school in Connecticut, Silver got his break on piano when his trio was recruited by Stan Getz in 1950. Silver soon moved to New York City, where he developed a reputation as a composer, and for his bluesy playing.

Silver co-founded The Jazz Messengers with Art Blakey, which brought further attention to his writing and playing.

Their first two studio recordings, with Hank Mobley on tenor saxophone, Kenny Dorham on trumpet, and  Doug Watkins on bass, were made in late 1954 and early 1955 and were released as two 10-inch albums under Silver's name, then soon thereafter as the 12-inch Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers. This album contained Silver's first hit, "The Preacher".  Unusually in Silver's career, recordings of concert performances were also released at this time, involving quintets at Birdland (1954) and the Café Bohemia (1955). This set of studio and concert recordings was pivotal in the development and defining of hard bop, which combined elements of blues, gospel, and R&B, with bebop-based harmony and rhythm. The new, funky hard bop was commercially popular, and helped to establish Blue Note as a successful business. 

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.

Early in 1964, Silver visited Brazil for three weeks, an experience he credited with increasing his interest in his heritage. In the same year, he created a new quintet, featuring Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone and Carmell Jones on trumpet. With that band, he recorded his best-known album, Song for My Father, which reached No. 95 on the Billboard 200 in 1965, and was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. 

Recordings and personnel changes – sometimes expanding the band to a sextet – continued in the mid-1960s. In 1966, The Cape Verdean Blues  charted at No. 130.The liner notes to the album  Serenade to a Soul Sister (1968) included lyrics (written but not sung), indicating a new interest for Silver.