Continuing the piano theme, today's Master is the pianist Horace Silver.
I don't know who the musicians backing Silver are, but this video was recorded in Copenhagen in April 1968. This video is the first time I've actually seen Silver - I had always assumed the picture on the cover of his 1964 album Song for My Father was Horace, but it's actually his father, John Tavares Silva, to whom the title song was dedicated. "My father," Silver recalls in the liner notes. "was born on the island of Maio, one of the Cape Verde Islands."
In case the opening of the song sounds familiar to you, the 70s jazz-rock band Steely Dan stole the opening notes of Song For My Father for their hit single Rikki Don't Lose That Number.
In 1969, the eccentric free-jazz singer Leon Thomas added lyrics to Silver's song and made it into a moving tribute to his own.father. "If there was ever a man who was generous, gracious and good, that was my Dad, the man," Thomas sings. This being the start of the Memorial Day weekend, it's perhaps not too maudlin to reminisce about our own fathers as Thomas sings - and them later yodels - his tribute.
I had a tempestuous relationship with my own late father (hey, it's a hard job, I get it). He wasn't a bad man and he certainly wasn't the monster that so many others have had to endure in their lives, and to be honest, I didn't make things easy for him and brought a lot down on myself. However, not to speak poorly of the departed, but I don't think "generous, gracious and good" are the first words that come to anyone's mind when trying to describe my father, and Thomas' tribute always serves to just make me more aware of the yawning gap between how things could have been and how things actually were.
Still a great song, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment