Blowin' the Blues Away

1	Blowin' the Blues Away 4:45
2	The St. Vitus Dance 4:09
3	Break City 4:57
4	Peace 6:02
5	Sister Sadie 6:19
6	The Baghdad Blues 4:52
7	Melancholy Mood 7:10
8	How Did It Happen Bonus Track 4:40

Barnes & Noble

The definitive album by Horace Silver's longest-lasting group: trumpeter Blue Mitchell, tenor saxophonist Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor, and drummer Louis Hayes. In 1959, the year of these sessions, there was a lot of talk about "soul jazz" and "funk jazz." The talk had a lot to do with Silver's band, a showcase for his churchy, down-home writing (unlike Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Silver's groups played Silver's tunes), which was a natural extension of his distinctive piano style, with its splashy treble-chord clusters and its grounding in the space between the Devil's music (blues) and the Lord's (gospel). Mitchell and Cook -- a pair of solid jabbers -- occupy the same space. The tempos here range from fast and furious ("Break City") to molasses slow ("Peace"), but the album's hit was the medium-tempo stroll of "Sister Sadie," which -- the liner notes tell us -- John Coltrane called an "amen number." Amen. Lee Jeske

All Music Guide

Blowin' the Blues Away is one of Horace Silver's all-time Blue Note classics, only upping the ante established on Finger Poppin' for tightly constructed, joyfully infectious hard bop. This album marks the peak of Silver's classic quintet with trumpeter Blue Mitchell, tenor saxophonist Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor, and drummer Louis Hayes; it's also one of the pianist's strongest sets of original compositions, eclipsed only by Song for My Father and Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers. The pacing of the album is impeccable, offering up enough different feels and slight variations on Silver's signature style to captivate the listener throughout. Two songs -- the warm, luminous ballad "Peace" and the gospel-based call-and-response swinger "Sister Sadie" -- became oft-covered standards of Silver's repertoire, and the madly cooking title cut wasn't far behind. And they embody what's right with the album in a nutshell -- the up-tempo tunes ("Break City") are among the hardest-swinging Silver had ever cut, and the slower changes of pace ("Melancholy Mood") are superbly lyrical, adding up to one of the best realizations of Silver's aesthetic. Also, two cuts ("Melancholy Mood" and the easy-swinging "The St. Vitus Dance") give Silver a chance to show off his trio chops, and "Baghdad Blues" introduces his taste for exotic, foreign-tinged themes. Through it all, Silver remains continually conscious of the groove, playing off the basic rhythms to create funky new time patterns. The typical high-impact economy of his and the rest of the band's statements is at its uppermost level, and everyone swings with exuberant commitment. In short, Blowin' the Blues Away is one of Silver's finest albums, and it's virtually impossible to dislike. Steve Huey