August 12, 2025
Blue Note Records has announced the October 24 release of Silver In Seattle: Live At The Penthouse, a never-before-issued live recording of Blue Note legend Horace Silver captured 60 years ago at The Penthouse jazz club in Seattle, Washington on August 12 and 19, 1965. The album features a short-lived powerhouse line-up of the pianist’s quintet with Woody Shaw on trumpet, Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone, Teddy Smith on bass, and Roger Humphries on drums performing uninhibited renditions of Silver classics including “Song For My Father,” “The Cape Verdean Blues,” “The Kicker,” “Sayonara Blues,” and “No Smokin’.”
Transferred from the original tapes recorded by KING-FM radio host and engineer Jim Wilke and mastered by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab, the broadcast quality recording presents one of the greatest hard bop bands of all time delivering a high-energy, crowd-pleasing performance in an intimate club setting. Produced for release by Zev Feldman, Silver In Seattle will be released on LP and CD, both of which include an elaborate booklet with rare photos by Francis Wolff, Burt Goldblatt, Jean-Pierre Leloir and others; plus liner notes by acclaimed jazz scholar Bob Blumenthal; and interviews and statements with drummer Roger Humphries, Silver band alumni Randy Brecker and Alvin Queen, rising star pianist Sullivan Fortner, and more.
Bob Blumenthal: “In what might be called the 33 1/3 era, Horace Silver was Blue Note’s quintessential recording artist. From his initial session as a leader in 1952 until the label’s temporary shutdown in 1979 he represented a model of the originality, innovation and consistency that became a label hallmark; and despite changes in the musical environment and his own style, he remained one of jazz’s most widely revered artists. The present newly discovered performances, taped at Seattle’s Penthouse jazz club roughly halfway through his affiliation with Blue Note captures Silver and his music at a critical part of the journey.”
Zev Feldman: “It’s an enormous honor to present this Horace Silver album, ‘Silver in Seattle: Live at the Penthouse.’ Of all the artists in the pantheon of jazz, Horace is absolutely one of my favorites. Horace Silver embodies the language of jazz. His unique personality beams out of his music in every composition and album… These recordings we present here are absolutely astounding; a source of inspiration and awe.”
Don Was: “It’s not out of line to say that Blue Note would not exist today without Horace Silver’s impactful approach to playing, writing and grooving. This makes Zev’s discovery of these tapes even more significant: we’ve been given a mind-blowing opportunity to glimpse Mr. Silver and his group stretching out in a live setting at the height of his popularity and creativity. ‘Silver in Seattle’ provides a missing link in our understanding of Horace Silver’s music and is an essential addition to his recorded legacy on Blue Note.”
Roger Humphries: “It was a heck of an experience being with Horace Silver, going all the different places that we would go… I recall that band in ’65. Woody Shaw. When Woody was playing, we had so much fun together. And I think about it now as well when I’m playing, but when you play with guys at their level, it’s like a conversation that you have… And Joe Henderson, when you listen to him right now, it makes me think, ‘Dear God, I had chance to play with these guys.’ Listening back to this music brings me back in time. It’s giving me more energy right now at this moment in my life too, to bring back some of that.”
