JAZZ REVIEW : Silver Strikes Gold at Catalina

After touring with a quintet for 30-plus years, pianist Horace Silver has formed a nine-piece brass ensemble that made its bow at Catalina on Tuesday, continuing through Sunday.

Silver’s talents as a composer are well suited to this larger canvas. On one tune he used a call-and-response effect, with the two trombones and French horn statements answered by three riffing trumpets.

Best of all was his decision to “do something different” with the familiar chord changes of “Body and Soul.” This emerged as “Put Me in the Basement,” a delightfully different, rhythmically convoluted melody in double time, with guest star Red Holloway playing his take-no-prisoners tenor sax and Silver’s piano inserted sly quotes in his less-is-more piano solo.

The long set was full of pleasant surprises. All three trumpeters--Oscar Brashear, Bob Summers and Ron Stout--had a chance to display their solo gifts. Susette Moriarty’s French horn was ideally adapted to the lead role in a new version of Silver’s classic “Son for My Father.”

The trumpeters switched to fluegelhorns for a mellow reading of Silver’s waltz “When You’re in Love.” The set ended with a roots-deep blues, featuring bass trombonist Maurice Spears and Holloway.

Starting tonight a vocalist, Andy Bey, will be added, but the ensemble as it stands is surely self-sufficient. With a new CBS Record contract, Silver seems poised to take off on a new and exciting phase of his long career.