Silvermine.  

If you had to believe the majority of the jazz press in the mid-1960s, everything but the ‘new thing’ was irrelevant. Take the constant appraisals of the ‘spiritual’ Coltrane  and ‘primal screams’ of Albert Ayler. Fine, jazz is synonymous with change. But life went on. Though the original sparks of hard bop were gone, figureheads such as Horace Silver and Cannonball Adderley kept the flame burning with catchy music that entertained large audiences through hits as Silver’s Song For My Father and Cannonball’s Mercy Mercy Mercy (written by Joe Zawinul). Meanwhile, they embraced progressive patterns, Silver by collaborating with Woody Shaw and Joe Henderson, Cannonball by recruiting Yusef Lateef and Charles Lloyd.

One of this year’s top-rate archival releases, Silver In Seattle: Live At The Penthouse, proves my point. Actually, Silver – the consummate Blue Note artist – would keep on forming bands with cats that expanded on the tradition, notably Bennie Maupin and Randy Brecker. Seattle features young Woody Shaw and Joe Henderson, who both had been making heads turn in 1965. Woody Shaw had worked with Eric Dolphy and was featured on one of Blue Note’s most beloved albums, Unity by organist Larry Young. Henderson had already recorded a couple of adventurous records on Blue Note and the label was about to release Mode For Joe at the time of the Penthouse gig in August.

The band was completed by bassist Teddy Smith and drummer Roger Humphries. The drummer had been part of the superb Silver albums Song For My Father, The Cape Verdean Blues and The Jody Grind, while Shaw was featured on Cape and Grind and Henderson on Song and Cape. As Silver In Seattle makes abundantly clear, a well-oiled machine.

They swing like mad on Henderson’s The Kicker, Silver’s No Smokin’, stretch out on Sayonara Blues and get into a sassy exotic groove on Song For My Father and The Cape Verdean Blues. Shaw and Henderson mix funk with dips into the outskirts of the chords, Silver is his typical propulsive self, his densely clustered chords keeping energy level high, his solo lines spicy and engaging. Humphries beautifully delineates all melodic twists and turns, spirited like a Jaguar on an empty coastal road. Have you heard him play on Carmell Jones’s Jay Hawk Talk? Awesome drummer with a great sound.

So, this year we’ve had Freddie Hubbard’s On Fire: Live From The Blue Morocco on Resonance and now there’s Silver In Seattle, another archival (Zev Feldman-produced) release that sounds fantastic, as if you’re in the room, pure joy for the lover of classic post and hard bop.

Here’s Alvin Queen, Eric Ineke and Jarmo Hoogendijk on Silver, Henderson and Shaw. 

The legendary drummer Alvin Queen (also featured in the liner notes of Silver In Seattle) played in Horace Silver’s band in 1969 and reconnected with the pianist in the early/mid 1970’s. He speaks with the utmost reverence regarding Horace Silver, but also has a few laughs about the way it went back then. Here’s a fragment from our interview in August 2023:

“When you make a hit record, that’s what people want to hear. I was sick of Song Of My Father! Horace said that we had to play it and we sometimes played it two or three times a night. That was the way it went. Miles had to play So What, Coltrane My Favorite Things and Cannonball Adderley Mercy Mercy Mercy by Joe Zawinul. We also played Sēnor Blues and Filthy McNasty. But then Horace changed up and started going into spirituality and recorded the United State Of Mind records. One night I said, ‘Horace, all that Hare Krishna stuff, God, what is going on?’ He said, ‘Alvin, I haven’t changed my music, it’s just the lyrics’.”

Alvin’s Dutch colleague Eric Ineke, who played with everybody from Dexter Gordon and Dizzy Gillespie to Jimmy Raney and Johnny Griffin, not least Woody Shaw and Joe Henderson, talks about the unique time feel of Joe Henderson in conversation with Dave Liebman in his book The Ultimate Sideman:

“His time was floating, a drummer’s dream. He had such great ideas and to follow that stuff was a lesson. Joe was so hip and smooth.” (Liebman: ‘The bar line did not exist when Joe was on. Is that true?’) “Yes, it was difficult. I really had to be there all the time with my head and listening, but what amazes me was that he had so much freedom with the time. You would think some guys taking a lot of freedom in the time would affect a drummer’s playing. But not with Joe Henderson… he was like a snake and it never affected your playing. You can just play on! It’s unbelievable, because he goes in and out without disturbing the thing…”

Ace Dutch trumpeter Jarmo Hoogendijk, formerly from Jarmo Hoogendijk/Ben van den Dungen Quintet and Nueva Manteca and nowadays an admired conservatory teacher, knew Woody Shaw very well in the mid-1980s. Here are his memories of Woody in Flophouse Magazine from 2023:

“I met Woody in 1986. I went to George’s Jazz Café in Arnhem with Ben. Woody played with the Cedar Walton Trio. We got to talking. From then on we met at concerts. Woody regularly stayed at the place of road manager Bob Holland. I met him over there and we chatted and studied together. Sometimes I took him out on a trip or to concerts or he visited my shows with Nueva Manteca. At some point, he was at my place and asked if he could stay overnight. Eventually, he stayed a couple of weeks and that was the last time that I saw him. It was pretty intense because Woody was quite a volatile character. People that act on such a high creative level are sensitive and vulnerable and sometimes self-destructive. And probably as a consequence things can get rough. Woody was like that. Wise but someone who in reality doesn’t know how to cope with life. But despite all of this, we also laughed a lot.”

“We were listening to music, chatting. Doing groceries, cooking. And going to jam sessions. Back then I lived right beside café De Sport, a flourishing and legendary jazz spot. At that time in his life, Woody rarely touched his instrument. But one day he said, ‘Ok, I feel like playing a bit’. We went to De Sport where the regular trio of pianist Frans Elsen featuring bassist Jacques Schols and drummer Eric Ineke was playing. Physically, Woody was in bad shape. But his playing was totally enchanting. I remember that he played The Man I Love, very subdued and humbling. When we finished, Woody made clear that he wanted to go home and have some sleep. This was very unlike Woody! He said, ‘I believe that this was the last time that I played.’ Incredibly and unfortunately, it was.”

“If there is one trumpeter that embodies the whole history of jazz but who is totally original, it’s Woody. What more could you ask for? His playing echoed Louis Armstrong and at the same time was super hip. It’s the max. When Shaw lived in Europe during the last years of his life, few musicians actually knew who he was or how great he was. If you ask about Shaw nowadays, many trumpeters pick him as their big favorite.”

“How can someone who lives such a chaotic personal life act at such a continuous high level? It’s astonishing. On his posthumous live albums and bootleg cassette tapes, that’s when you hear him playing totally different and original versions of the same compositions night after night. Truly amazing. His memory was fabulous and his ears were pitch-perfect. Woody was absurd. His constitution must’ve been very strong. Woody studied eight or nine hours every day, then went to a gig and a jam session afterwards. Every day, every week, on and on. Who can put that thing in his mouth for so long? His son Woody III told me that he should not dare to come in his dad’s room with this or that message, like ‘telephone’ or ‘dinner’s ready’. He just didn’t hear him and kept on playing! He was one with the trumpet. But he also partied hard.”

Party hard and start with Horace and the gang killing it on The Kicker below.