Search - Horace Silver :: Paris Blues

The bad news is that Paris Blues isn't an album of new songs. The good news is that it's a slammin' 1962 live set of previously unreleased material from Silver and his long-running band, which featured trumpeter Blue Mitchell, saxophonist Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor, and drummer Roy Brooks. The production quality here is fairly high for a live recording of the time, with the band's hard-groovin' performances well captured. Silver tosses in licks left and right and occasionally takes a short and tasteful solo, but he's at his best here as he bangs out his patented bluesy, on-the-beat rhythms, feeding the horn players tasty riffs and rallying the band into a frenzy of upbeat hard bop. Featuring stretched-out versions of Silver classics "Filthy McNasty," "Sayonara Blues," and "The Tokyo Blues," as well as two others, Paris Blues captures this group at its high-octane best, with all the energy you'd expect from Horace Silver and his best band since leaving the Jazz Messengers. --Tad Hendrickson