'I
was a sensualist in those days'
Horace Silver selects tea leaves at
the Bodhi Tree bookshop in Los Angeles.
 n pursuit of Horace
Silver: He's rolling west on Sunset in his blue late-model Toyota Corolla,
his nautical cap tilted over his celebrated straggly, collar-length hair,
his highly trained foot gentle on the gas pedal as it rarely is on the piano
pedal.
Before our chat over a tuna melt and tea at the Source, a vegetarian
bistro on Sunset not far from Tower Records, we would have pegged him as a
Thunderbird man.
This is the composer, after all, of “The Preacher,” the granddaddy of the
down-home, rocking, gospel-type tunes of the '50s, when the pianist won
fame. He wrote “Opus de Funk,” one of the swingingest tunes since
Ellington's “Rockin' in Rhythm.” He did “Quicksilver,” another killer
piece, on the up tempo side.
The guys in the bands he's led are almost all 10s on the Hard Bop index:
Donald Byrd, Art Farmer, Blue Mitchell and Woody Shaw played trumpet for
him; Hank Mobley, Junior Cook, Clifford Jordan, Joe Henderson and Bob Berg
blew scorching tenor; Louis Hayes, Roy Brooks and Billy Cobham kicked in
on drums; Gene Taylor, Teddy Kotick and John B. Williams blew bass.
There used to be a joke about the Horace Silver wind-up doll: Wind it up
and it sweats all over the piano. But now we're on the way to a certain
bookstore on Melrose Avenue, driving down La Cienega behind him, puzzled.
He had been asked what he's been reading.
Silver takes a piano solo at the Hollywood Bowl.
 e had leaned forward
and his
conversation slowed a little. “I'm not one for reading novels and stuff
like that,” he began. “Well, years ago I used to read things like that,”
he corrected himself. “But today my reading basically consists of
metaphysical reading, you know? Spiritual reading.
“I read some Yogananda — are you familiar with the Self-Realization
Fellowship? He's passed on, a great spiritual teacher. I've read almost
everything they put out by Edgar Cayce. I read some of the literature from
Silent Unity; it's a religious church. I read a lot of the things by
Ernest Holmes, the founder of the Church of Religious Science. I've read
Swedenborg. I've read a lot of the yoga philosophies.
“When I lived in New York, I was a frequent visitor to Samuel Wise's,
which is a sort of a metaphysical occult-type bookshop. Out here I'm a
frequent visitor to the Bodhi Tree. They sell some of my records. It's
right down on Melrose.”
The Bodhi Tree was full not only of books, sunlight and incense, but of
things like patchouli oil, concentration spots, power pyramids, mala beads
and something called the Zafu meditation pillow — easy targets for
ridicule, and decidedly unsettling to a Church of England man.
Silver had difficulty finding his records in the display rack at first. It
turned out they were hidden by some recordings of the mating calls of
whales. A clerk appeared and the records were restored to their proper
place. The clerk said the folks in the Bodhi Tree play Silver's records
every morning “to get going.”
Silver announces a number.
 ow, one of these disks comes
packaged in a seemingly ordinary but somehow arresting cover bearing a
photograph in which the hands of the pianist, who'll be opening a four-day
stand with his quintet tonight at the Hyatt on Sunset, rest on a parking
meter. A parking meter!
He is standing on a street that could be found only in Los Angeles. The
title of the album is “There's No Need to Struggle” When troubles are
near, God knows just what to do, There's no need to struggle, let go and
let Him help you.”
The music, sung by the vocal group Feather and played
by Silver, saxophonist Eddie Harris, trumpeter Bobby Shew, drummer Carl
Burnett and bassist Bob Maize, is obviously from the hand of the man who
won our hearts with “Sister Sadie,” “Filthy McNasty,” “Senor Blues” and
“Serenade to a Soul Sister.”
But the words?
 ell, I was a
sensualist in those days. Now I'm more spiritual,” Silver smiled.
“We call the music self-help holistic metaphysical music,” he went on,
“and the philosophies and psychology within the music, the lyrics and the
song titles are a lot of the things that I've been studying I through the
years with these various teachers.
“And the reason we call the album ‘There's No Need to Struggle' is
because, once you know that the Supreme is takin' care of you and you're doin' your part, there's really no need to get up-tight and to struggle,
you know?”
We said we used to hear a very similar rap from the Episcopalians.
“Mmm-hmmm. Well, we have to remind ourselves sometimes, because we get far
away from that, as we grow older and get so sophisticated out here in the
sophisticated ways of life that we forget about the simple basic laws of
nature and the laws of God,” the musician replied.
Silver, who'll be featured at the Playboy Festival next month before he
leaves on a tour of Japan, stopped at a display of numerous vials, each
the size of a short test tube and containing a pastel-colored liquid.
 hese you put under the
tongue,” he said.
In answer to the question of what each was good for, he had the clerk
search out a slim violet volume titled “The Bach Flower Remedies,” which
includes two works by Edward Bach, M.D., originally copyrighted in England
in 1931. and a third by F.J. Wheeler.
The liquid Silver had picked out, Wild Rose, was listed in the index,
which referred to a page headed “Not Sufficient Interest in Present
Circumstances.” The entry under Wild Rose was as follows:
For those who without apparently sufficient reason have become resigned to
all that happens, and just glide through life, take it as it is, without
any effort to improve things and find some joy. They have surrendered to
the struggle of life without complaint.
Funny he should have picked that particular vial.
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