Song for My Father

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.

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

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

Perhaps there was just too much "hype" involved, but the recording leaves me a bit cold. I love classic jazz from the end of WW II to the Vietnam era, and I own most of the highest regarded releases from those 20 years. This was one I did not get around to buying until last month. I just could not get emotionally involved in any of the tracks, or compelled to hit repeat several times, the way I felt with "Kind of Blue" or "Something Else" or "Mingus Ah Um" or "Bill Evans Live at the Village Vanguard" or "Blue Train" and so many other beloved old records by the masters of mid-20th century jazz. Perhaps my mood of the moment is at fault, or my choice to listen to it while driving instead of at home with earphones. Horace Silver is certainly a fine pianist, Joe Henderson a great sax artist, but overall, this album is just not my cup of tea.

i have met people who actually live without this album. whenever i think about that, i always shake my head in wonder. i don't know how they do it.