260: Finger Poppin' with the Horace Silver Quintet, by the Horace Silver Quintet

Horace Silver Quintet (USA)
Finger Poppin' with the Horace Silver Quintet (1959)
8 tracks, 43 minutes
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I think Horace Silver is probably one of the most famous jazz musicians that could still claim to be underrated. While most music fans would probably recognise John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk as important figures in music (even if they may not be overly familiar with their output), Silver’s name never really seems to come up in that sort of context. In that way, he’s sort of a jazz fan’s musician – incredibly popular and influential but with an acclaim that never really exceeded the jazz sphere.

Finger Poppin' with the Horace Silver Quintet – yet another classic jazz album from 1959 – is a wonderful distillation of everything that made Silver great. As a pianist, he is in top form here, but really, it’s the whole ensemble that are on fire, and Silver’s compositions and leadership is at the heart of that; there’s a reason why this line-up (Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Junior Cook on tenor sax, Gene Taylor on bass and Louis Hayes on drums) became the nucleus of his most fruitful period.

In many ways, this album sounds quite simple compared to the mad mathematic experiments so excitingly pioneered at this time by Coltrane and Coleman, and without the fragile subtlety of Miles’ cool period that was in full swing. Instead, Silver came out with a jumping collection of hard bop, with a couple of blueses and sultry ballads thrown in for good measure. It’s not that he wasn’t making his own experiments with this album – elements of Brazilian and Cuban rhythm and harmony sneak their way into his playing and the whole feel of the ensemble in a way that would go on to become his distinctive sound, together with the music of his father’s native Cabo Verde – but that wild experimentation wasn’t necessarily the goal of this one.

For me, Finger Poppin’ is a terrific example of the joyousness that could be imbued into hard bop. It is played with serious minds and serious chops, but the music itself is less serious – you can feel the enjoyment in the studio leaking out of the speakers and into your ears. This album isn’t one that requires you to recalibrate your internal gyroscopes to understand a whole new jazz dimension, it’s just great music played really well and with a lot of fun.

If you're well into your music but are less of a jazz nut, dig this album. You'll be able to impress the jazz cats with your knowledge and you never know, maybe you'll discover your new favourite pianist.