Breaks: Horace Silver and Ramsey Lewis

Beginning his career as a sax player, Horace Silver eventually switched over to piano – thankfully. If not for that early career shift, who knows how many hours of Silver’s twinklin’ keys we wouldn’t have.

First coming to the attention of Stan Getz and gigging with this jazz luminary, Silver gained a decent amount of notoriety to the point of earning a spot at the Birdland as an accompanist. This move would basically be what the rest of his career was predicated on.

Working at the Birdland allowed Silver to become familiar with the major jazz players – and record execs – on the New York scene. Eventually, the pianist hooked up with drummer Art Blakey. And as a result of their work together, took jazz to a new place.

There have and will always continue to be genre names that endlessly dove tail into one another. Hard Bop is one of this genre names. Using the model of Parker, Coltrane and Davis – with whom Silver worked briefly – the project of Blakey and Silvers, named the Jazz Messengers, set out to bring the swing back into bop. Of course one might argue that Miles swings as hard as anyone does. That may well be the case, but the grand and surprising changes that he instituted throughout his life time can’t be said to be consistent.

Blakey and Silver worked together for a few years. And as Silver departed, Blakey continued on using the Jazz Messengers moniker until the end of his career. Horace Silver, though, had other works in store.

After parting ways with the Jazz Messengers, Silver’s work continued to evolve. And whereas the Jazz Messengers could be referred to as hard bop, some of Silver’s subsequent dates, while still maintaining a strong correlation to his work with Blakey, served to spur on what would become soul jazz.

The incorporation of antiquated, but uniquely African American influences kept Silver swinging. And to his credit, the basic tenets of soul jazz are still in place today. But one of the most exemplary recordings of this style was turned in by a figure who a good deal of the jazz cognoscenti don’t consider indispensible. The 1965 recording of The In Crowd marked a commercial high point for the medium, but also gave the genre an anthem that could be appreciated by not only jazzbos, but more passive jazz fans.

Working in a trio setting, Ramsey Lewis, Redd Holt and Eldee Young set up a three evening run at Washington D.C.’s Bohemian Cavern’s. Being culled from these dates, The In Crowd’s most rewarding moment is the title track. Within this seemingly simple blues construction no one is really featured. Obviously, the keys of Lewis are out front, but his solos are pretty basic and always anchored by his light chording. The crowd and its audible response to the song, though, work to show an enthusiasm that many strains of more cerebral jazz couldn’t elicit from the general public. And regardless of what one may thing of Lewis’ career as a whole, this one moment had a drastic effect on not only the sub-genre of soul jazz, but on jazz in its entirety.