Jazz Pianist Horace Silver Dies at 85

horace-silver

The current generation has no respect for jazz music. Its intricacies. Its timing. Its jumping and swaying and swinging rhythms. No one respects just how much goes into it. I can tell you from a musician standpoint that it is the toughest music to play. If you see someone playing jazz, you are seeing someone talented, and when it came to jazz piano, few could touch Horace Silver. Sadly, the jazz piano virtuoso passed away at 85 years old this week.

Horace Silver pioneered the sub genre of jazz called Hard Bop, that was a seemingly more aggressive but just as melodic version of the music than anyone had heard before him. The kind of music you would see and hear in movies that show old juke joints from the 40’s. Without question, Horace Silver was one of the most influential jazz players of the last century, and one who will be idolized and emulated by great jazz players for years to come. He had even formed a new age jazz label at one point that wanted to focus on the holistic approach that music may have on people. A brain well ahead of its time, many have said.

Well, now his body can lay at rest, his soul can be free, and his uncompromising form of jazz piano can live on through his music and the many souls he mentored and taught in his life time. He may have passed on from the Earth, but a soul like Horaace Silver is immortal, thanks to his music.

Image Via PopMatters

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