Record Boy | Horace Silver & The Jazz Messengers | This blue holds a heat that hasn't yet become a name

Good morning.
This is Ryota, the record boy.

Today's record is Horace Silver and The Jazz Messengers.

Following my feature on Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers last time, it was probably only natural that I would want to pick up this record next.

Even though it shares the name "Jazz Messengers," this one carries a slightly different temperature.

And above all, the blue on this jacket is wonderful.

This might be a story that only those in the know will understand.

There is another record with the same composition that is orange.

And the blue one is the Jazz Messengers, while the orange one is Horace Silver's original band.

That kind of feeling has become a sort of common knowledge among enthusiasts.

Records are remembered not just by their sound, but by their color as well.

Looking at this record, I am reminded of that once again.

The jacket features Horace Silver with his finger pointed upward.

The screen is unified in a single shade of blue.

The names are prominently displayed.

If the previous Art Blakey record had a jacket that pressed against you with the intensity of a face, this one is a bit lighter and has more of a "something is about to begin" feeling.

It is interesting that even while breathing the same early Blue Note air, they have different expressions.

Horace Silver is one of the central figures who shaped the form of hard bop.

He was a pianist, a composer, and also someone who brought a sense of "accessibility" to push jazz further forward.

The feel of gospel and blues, phrases that stick in your ears, and rhythms that your body reacts to naturally.

Rather than complexity, it is about the tactile feel first.

I think this feeling is very significant when considering later hard bop.

Art Blakey and Horace Silver were intersecting in the mid-1950s, right in the midst of the birth of hard bop.

Although the Jazz Messengers would later become strongly associated with Art Blakey's name, I feel that this record still retains the heat of the prototype, before that name became a fully established brand.

That is why this record has a charm different from the power of the 'prestigious band' it would become in later years.

It is younger, more in the process of formation, yet something has already begun.

The atmosphere of such a moment is captured within.

When listening to jazz, there are times when I am more drawn to the 'moment when something arises' than to a 'completed masterpiece'.

This record is exactly on that side.

Things that would later become taken for granted are not yet taken for granted here.

But they are certainly beginning here.

There is that kind of feeling.

The Art Blakey record I covered last time had a jacket that projected the pressure of jazz even before the music started playing.

In contrast, this Horace Silver record has a premonition that jazz is starting to move forward, even before the music starts.

I like this difference.

When you line them up on a shelf, that difference becomes visible.

And personally, I really love the blue on this record.

It's not just blue because it's Blue Note.

It is a blue that is a little lighter, a little sharper, a little more intellectual, yet not cold.

This color holds a time like the space between morning and night in the city.

I feel that somehow connects to Horace Silver's sound as well.

With the previous Art Blakey record, my spine straightened in the night.

With this Horace Silver record, a little bit of mobility is added to that night.

It feels like jazz for starting to walk.

Before the name 'The Jazz Messengers' became history itself.

Back when Horace Silver was starting to push jazz forward with his own voice.

I think this record captures the sparkle of that journey.

Today, it's Horace Silver and The Jazz Messengers.

By picking up this record after Art Blakey, I could see that the flow of jazz wasn't just a single line, but had actual branches.

Those branches would eventually turn into their own colors.

I want to try receiving this blue again as the first sign of that.