Stories of Standards: “Nica’s Dream” by Horace Silver

Tune in to Jazz with Victor Cooper – weekdays from 6-9 a.m. MT – for Stories of Standards to hear our favorite versions of this song all week long beginning Monday, October 29 presented by Rodney Franks!

Stories of Standards is sponsored by ListenUp - If you love music, you’ll love ListenUp.

“Nica’s Dream” (1956) by Horace Silver was written in honor of the Baroness Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Koenigswarter (known as Nica), whose 1948 encounter with “Round Midnight” by Thelonious Monk led her to leave family behind and spend the rest of her life as a patron of jazz and jazz musicians. This song, written in AABA format, features 16-bar segments rather than the usual 8-bars and uses Latin beats in B-flat minor for the A sequence, with a swing rhythm in D-flat major for the B sequence. Dee Dee Bridgewater wrote lyrics so that she could record it, as has at least one other lyricist.

During the 1950s Horace Silver (1928-2014) helped pioneer the hard-bop school of jazz, while his choice of instruments served as a template for many small jazz bands of the 1950s and 1960s. Silver was first known for his work with Stan Getz and went on to create the Jazz Messengers with Art Blakey. His 1964 Brazil trip led to a renewal of interest in his Portuguese heritage (his father was born on Maio Island, Cape Verde) and greatly influenced “Song for My Father” (1965) and 1966’s “The Cape Verdean Blues”. Horace Silver was one of the most influential musicians of his generation; as a pioneer of hard bop, as a user of the archetypal jazz quintet (trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, double-bass and drums), as a teacher who helped young musicians develop, as creator of a new style of jazz piano and as a composer and arranger.