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NPR has confirmed the death of Horace Silver. He died late this morning at age 85. — Jazz Night (@jazznight) June 18, 2014

Born in Norwalk, Connecticut as Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva (his father was from Cape Verde), Silver began his musical career as a tenor saxophonist in the style of Lester Young before switching to piano. In 1950, Silver was discovered by tenor man Stan Getz, who took Silver’s trio on the road and recorded three of his compositions.

A year later, Silver moved to New York, where he began his association with drummer Blakey. Silver, Blakey and either bassist Curley Russell or Percy Heath recorded several trio sessions before in 1954, A Night At Birdland, Vol. 1 was released by the Art Blakey Quintet, featuring trumpeter Brown, alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, Silver, Russell and Blakey. Included on the disc were the Silver compositions Split Kick (a contrafact on There Will Never Be Another You), Quicksilver and Mayreh. A year later, Blue Note released Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers, featuring seven Silver compositions including Doodlin‘ and The Preacher. In an allaboutjazz.com interview, Silver said of his association with Blakey:

One great thing that I think I learned from Art is to give all of yourself when you get up on that bandstand. That bandstand is like an altar. It’s like holy ground or sacred ground. When you get up on that stage or that bandstand, throw everything else out of your mind and just give one hundred percent or a hundred and fifty percent of yourself. Give your all. I remember one time, Art giving us a lecture at the Café Bohemia. I guess he wasn’t satisfied as to what the band was doing. He said, “Look, you guys. I don’t care if you had a fight with your girlfriend or with your wife, or whatever problems you have got outside. When you come into this club, leave that shit outside and come up here onto this bandstand and let’s take care of business. When you want to pick them problems up when you go home, that’s your business. When you come in here, leave that shit outside and let’s get up on there and cook.” Get up on the bandstand and take care of business. And that’s what he did. That’s what he encouraged us all to do.

In the same interview, Silvered offered this definition of hard bop, which deserves to be memorized by all jazz players:

I would say that it’s bop with a little more energy to it. There was polite bop and then there was hard bop. The polite bop was more sophisticated… the hard bop is real slam, bang, kicking ass kind of music.

Over the years, the hard bop hits such Sister Sadie and Filthy McNasty continued, very much in sync with Silver’s earthy piano style. The bossa-style piece Song For My Father might be Silver’s signature piece — its introduction was borrowed by Steely Dan for Rikki Don’t Lose That Number. Here’s a 1976 performance of that piece at the Umbria Jazz Festival, featuring trumpeter Tom Harrell and saxophonist Bob Berg in Silver’s ensemble: