Aged just 19, with Pepper Adams, Bobby Timmons, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. Though so early, this is a crucial set, kicking off with a scorching, fresh A Night in Tunisia.
Timmons plays a blinder.

‘Classic Vinyl Series.’

Lee Morgan (trumpet), Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Ronnie Mathews (piano), Victor Sproles (bass), Billy Higgins (drums).
Japanese one-off CD. The LP is in the Blue Note Classics series.

At the fountainhead of soul jazz and boogaloo, the stinging opener is an all-time, humungous, utterly irresistible jazz hit.
Joe Henderson and Barry Harris are superb throughout. Don’t miss Hocus-Pocus.

‘Classic Vinyl Series.’

Delightfulee, The Cooker, Leeway, The Rumproller, Search For The New Land.

‘Classic Vinyl.’

Featuring the almightily beloved, filial jazz standard.
Stevie nicked the horn riff for Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing. (Steely Dan and Madlib followed suit.)
The great pianist in between bands in 1963-4, with Joe Henderson and Carmell Jones. Monumental hard bop; a key Blue Note.
‘Classic Vinyl Series.’

From 1956, recycling the previous year’s Jazz Messengers, subbing Louis Hayes for Blakey. Apparently Silver wasn’t planning on becoming a bandleader, but the success of Señor Blues propelled him forwards. Hank Mobley and Donald Byrd in full effect.

Terrific recordings commemorating three nightclub engagements in 1964-66.
Horace is sparklingly excursive and dead funky; Joe Henderson is grooving, raucous, and reaching. The great Carmell Jones is here, subbed twice by Woody Shaw. Altogether the playing has an immediacy and abandon you only get live.
The repertoire is killer diller; cherry-picked from a string of stone classic LPs — Song For My Father, Tokyo Blues, The Cape Verdean Blues, Six Pieces, and Senor Blues. The sound is superbly restored to the label’s customary high standards by Michael Brändli.

‘Long before his death in 2014, Silver’s reputation had become occluded, or tarnished with the notion that he was a relatively slight figure, more of an entertainer than an innovator… His habit of quoting other songs in his solos, often dismissed as a shallow, crowd-pleasing trick, is a forerunner of sampling culture and hip-hop. It’s also an acknowledgement of how profoundly knowledgeable Silver was about the canon and its evolution. Here’s a line of mine, he might say, and here’s where it came from, but also here and here. His only mistake in this regard was to smile while he was playing… a challenge to the really rather recent notion that jazz should be deadly serious and played with a pained rictus.’

Warmly recommended. Do yourselves a favour.

From August 1965, pitched between the sessions for Song For My Father and Cape Verdean Blues. Both classic numbers are here, in scorching renditions. Twenty-year-old Woody Shaw announces himself in fine style on the helter-skelter opener Kicker. Joe Henderson plays a blinder in Silver’s shows around this time, gloriously cutting loose on the hits. You need this LP plus the Ezzthetics CD Live New York Revisited, which dovetails nicely. Hot stuff.

‘Classic Vinyl’ series.

Home Cookin’, Crazy! Baby, Midnight Special, Back At The Chicken Shack, Softly As A Summer Breeze.

Introducing the bossa nova in 1959, the original LP plus extras. Appearing effortlessly cultured and crafted, as natural as breath.

With Jaki Byard, Richard Williams, and Elvin Jones at Van Gelder’s in 1965 — a wildly brilliant mixture of homage and experimentation, New Orleans manzello, noise, Middle Eastern vibes, modal grooving… Unmissable.