Goodbye, Hardbop Grandpop

In this new Summer 2014 edition of this website, I had planned to pay tribute to jazz master Horace Silver while he was still living among us and honor the rich legacy of his work in modern music. But in my race to meet the deadline, Silver beat me to the finish line.

As I was preparing to launch this new website edition with my tribute to Silver, I opened the pages of my morning paper, the international edition of the New York Times, over breakfast yesterday and was hit with this obituary of Horace Silver on page 2 of the paper. Although many fans and followers had been expecting such sad news about the aging and ailing Silver for quite a while now, his passing at age 85 in New York still came as something of a shock to me.

The maestro has really left and gone on to that Great Jazz Gig in the Sky.

There is so much to say here about the influence of this giant in the musical world, who still has a large following of international fans (including here in Japan, and including myself), but the words don’t seem to come easily right now. So by necessity, this blog entry will have to be a short one.

But you can bet that in the coming weeks and months, I will have lots more to say about the magnificence of Silver and the treasured body of works he leaves behind for us. I cannot think of any one single musician who has had more of a positive influence on my writing (and on my life in general) than has Horace Silver. As a musician, he was a composer’s composer — a writer and creator of the highest order.

So, do stay tuned to this blog page for more on my future tributes to the “Hardbop Grandpop,” as Silver was humorously nicknamed some years ago. (More details here on an outstanding album of that same name that Silver recorded back in the mid-1990s, one of his last recorded works.)

And in the meantime, I encourage you to check out Silver’s official website here for information about his life and work. It’s a great starting point if you don’t know much about him, and a great place to hang out for a while if you do.

All that’s left to say at this point is simply: Goodbye, Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver. Thank you for making the world a more bearable, beautiful and bright place through your music and inspiring approach to living life. You’ve checked out now, but the music remains here to remind us. And remind us it will — for many people around this great big world and for a very long time to come.

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