One of my favorite jazz artists is Horace Silver. He is, of course, a great master of the piano with a secure place in jazz history. He has put together incredible groups of musicians and has an immense discography whose recordings number among the very best in jazz.
The gift that he has given to us that I want to focus on is the body of jazz compositions he has created and have become “jazz standards”. These tunes are fun to play, challenging in their changes, pushed ahead the harmonies of jazz, and provide choice materials for jam sessions and gigs.
Nica’s Dream
This is perhaps my favorite Horace Silver song, and also one of my all time jazz favorites. The song has an interesting modified calypso type of beat that is fun to groove on. Then the bridge moves to swing. However, the first two measures of the bridge are in a two beat backbeat on a bass pedal at the 5th. I am a bass player and I love kicking these notes to drive the transition. In fact every time I play this song when I hit the bridge I experience a bit of pure joy.
The first time I played this song was in the middle of “downstate” Illinois. I was still attending the U of I at the time,and a jazz group of friends were taking a little road trip to play a wedding reception. As a side note, these guys also played at my wedding a year or so later. During the course of this “gig” we were reading out of fake books (didn’t even have a Real Book,yet.) and the piano player called Nica’s Dream.
As I was playing it and listening to others in the group, it became apparent quickly that this was no ordinary standard from a fake book. This was something special and I was in love at first hearing. We had brought a reel-to-reel tape recorder to the gig and for weeks afterward I re-listened to the song quite a few times. Then just I had to get the Horace Silver LP the contained it: Horace-Scope featuring Blue Mitchell and Jr. Cook out front.
This is the original recording:
Also, see how guitarist Wes Montgomery handles it.
As recently as this weekend, we had a jam session on Sunday where Nica’s Dream was the hit of the day. The sax player said, hey tune is a whole lot of fun. I still felt my bit-o-joy- at the bridge, some 35 years later.
Hi – thank you very much for leaving this song in its entirety, for both study and enjoyment. I wrote lyrics for this song (without knowing there were already a few) and sang it for my vocal jazz teacher, Molly Holm (we are in the SF Bay Area) – well, Molly with great kindness suggested that I give a listen to the song as Horace did it, before I do my own take! It is such a wonderful song that I wrote lyrics to it so that I could enjoy it more! And, I have my own Nica story! Thanks again, LL