Track Listing

1. Song for My Father
2. The Natives Are Restless Tonight
3. Calcutta Cutie
4. Que Pasa?
5. The Kicker - Horace Silver, Henderson, Joe [1]
6. Lonely Woman
7. Sanctimonious Sam - Horace Silver, Kaleem, Musa
8. Que Pasa?
9. Sighin' and Cryin'
10. Silver Threads Among My Soul

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4947 in Music
• Released on: 1999-04-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered

Album Description
A visit to Brazil prompted Horace Silver's interest in his Portuguese roots and led to the magnificent "Song For My Father," his most enduring composition. This album also introduced his new band with Joe Henderson and Carmell Jones and features the classic band with Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook.

Amazon.com essential recording
Since its title track provided the inspiration for Steely Dan's "Rikki, Don't Lose That Number," Song for My Father has become known as the jazz recording that launched a thousand bad rock records. Yet whatever pretensions Steely Dan and their legion of desperately hip imitators had shouldn't be laid at pianist Horace Silver's door: this is one of Blue Note's warmest and most satisfying collections--and that's saying something. A pioneer of the hard-bop style, which combined gospel and R&B with jazz, Silver authored many outstanding compositions, including not just "Song for My Father," but "Opus de Funk," "Nica's Dream," "Senor Blues," and "The Preacher." His quintets, which featured tenor sax and trumpet, spotlighted such up-and-coming talents as trumpeters Woody Shaw, Art Farmer, and Donald Byrd. On Song for My Father, the band features tenorman Joe Henderson, who contributed one of his own signature tunes, "The Kicker." Along with the strong quintet work, the album includes a fine trio feature for the pianist in "Lonely Woman." --Fred Goodman

Customer Reviews

Still fine wine
I originally purchased this album in 1964. It was one of my favorites then and it still is. Silver's hard charging jazz is a benchmark piece for this period. Excellent solo work by Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook are excellent.
I feel that this is a "must have" album for fans of jazz in the 50's and 60's.

Joe Henderson's tenor Solo on the Title track will haunt you
One of the most beautiful Jazz albums one is ever likely to own. It is "vintage Silver," backed up by his favorite side men, including the incomparable Joe Henderson on tenor, who at the time was just hitting his "post-Coltrane" stride.

The centerpiece of the album is of course the famous Portuguese flavored song (Silver has Portuguese roots) and title piece, "Song for my father" (Cantiga para meu pao).

It is almost religious in its haunting repetitious vamp. And one is unlikely to ever hear a more beautiful, subtler, solo than that crafted by Henderson on this track. Its beauty is almost "stealth-like" in the way it creeps up on you. It begins innocently enough and then builds into a subdued but violent crescendo, and then dies away as if nothing ever happened: all done without the classical musical fireworks, just the facts man. Amen

I had the opportunity to meet Henderson off stage at Blues Alley just to tell him how much that one solo meant to me and to the Jazz world. He understood and appreciated the compliment.

Five Stars

Lost Treasure Found!
In 1996 I moved back East in with a friend whose uncle was a Jazz musician and also an avid Jazz collector as well. At the time I was an up and coming rapper and Hip-Hop producer looking for samples to make and re-create new music so I would sit and listen to his uncle's mint condition 33's for hours and hours everyday for months on end collecting snippets from his collection for re-recording at a later date. One day I stumbled upon this album and it literally changed my life! The title track is great, I love the whole album too but the one that stuck in my head for years was the slow song, Lonely Woman. I moved out after less than a year and moved on with my life but for years after that I could not remember the name of the album or the artist but that song drifted in and out of my head all the time. Fast forward to 2008. I recently started listening to Jazz more frequently now that I am older and much wiser (39) and while getting my feet wet in the whole Jazz scene I naturally went with a known heavy weight to start with like Coltrane. Amazon recommended this Silver album when I was buying a Coltrane album and instantly I remembered the cover art! So for 11 years I have had this tune in my head and I finally found it by accident because of the unforgettable photo of his father! Thank you Mr. Silver for making this song, this album and for your entire collection, you are truly a musical Jazz genius and some how some way I plan to acquire your entire catalog! I also must thank my ex roommate and his uncle Mr. Joe McPhee from Poughkeepsie, NY, who is also an excellent jazz musician himself! (True story)

Zaria from California