“The theme of this record is love,” wrote Horace Silver within the liner notes to 1968’s Serenade To A Soul Sister, an album whose message chimed with the vibe of the late 60s hippy motion. One of many architects of a well-liked jazz model often known as exhausting bop, which he developed within the mid-Fifties, Silver adopted a extra commercially profitable soul jazz strategy within the Sixties, epitomized by his iconic album, Music For My Father, which rose to No. 95 on The Billboard 200 in 1965, an unprecedented feat for a jazz report. Its follow-up, Cape Verdean Blues, additionally grazed the pop charts, underlining Silver’s industrial worth to Blue Notice. Jazz had misplaced a lot floor to pop and rock because the 60s progressed, however Silver confirmed that the style may nonetheless be a drive within the fashionable market. Three years on from Music For My Father’s success, Silver recorded his sixteenth Blue Notice album, Serenade To A Soul Sister, a piece that’s extensively thought of his ultimate masterpiece.
Serenade To A Soul Sister was recorded throughout two separate periods. Usually, Silver recorded solely together with his working band. For the primary session, nevertheless, he got here to the studio in early 1968 with just one member from his then group: trumpeter Charles Tolliver. Rounding issues out had been famous tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, whom he described as “a giant on his instrument,” along with bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Mickey Roker, stalwarts of many Blue Notice periods.
The all-star quintet session yielded three tunes, starting with the pressing “Psychedelic Sally” dominated by fanfare-like horns. The monitor was additionally notable for Cranshaw preferring an electrical bass over an acoustic one. The album’s title monitor, a chic soul-jazz waltz, was devoted to Silver’s mom, whom he described as “the greatest soul sister.” In sharp distinction, “Rain Dance” was a modal swinger that started with Native American-inspired rhythms. “[It] is my interpretation of some American Indians doing a tribal dance around the campfire praying for rain,” Silver defined.
The album’s remaining tunes had been minimize at a second recording session a month later, in March 1968. This time, Silver used his highway band: Tolliver with tenor saxophonist Bennie Maupin, bassist John Williams, and a rising Panama-born drummer known as Billy Cobham, contemporary out of the military. “A budding young talent to be watched,” was how Silver referred to the sticks man. (In just a few years, Cobham would co-found the jazz-rock behemoth Mahavishnu Orchestra after which get pleasure from a outstanding solo profession.)
The hypnotic “Jungle Juice,” lit up by a strong Maupin solo, finds Silver exploring modal jazz territory. “Kindred Spirits,” devoted to Silver’s three brothers, is extra meditative. The horns drop out on the dreamy finale, a sluggish ballad known as “The Next Time I Fall In Love,” with Silver enjoying in a piano trio configuration.
Jacketed in a entrance cowl depicting a “soul sister” photographed by drummer Billy Cobham, Serenade To A Soul Sister’s again cowl was dedicated to Silver’s intensive liner notes, which even offered unrecorded lyrics to 3 of the album’s tunes. Their inclusion signposted the pianist’s future recordings with vocals because the late 60s rolled into the 70s. Silver additionally said his compositional dos and don’ts, stating that “I personally do not believe in politics, hatred or anger in musical composition,” a veiled critique maybe of avant-garde jazz’s revolutionary fervor.
Although it couldn’t match the industrial success of Music For My Father, Serenade To A Soul Sister made No. 41 on the US R&B chart. Even so, it’s nonetheless an underappreciated gem in Silver’s canon; a soul jazz manifesto whose message nonetheless rings true at present.
Order Horace Silver’s Serenade to a Soul Sister on vinyl now.
