Horace Silver - 1954
‘Room 608’ was first released in 1954 on a 10″ disc. In 1956 it was rereleased on Silver’s first album for Blue Note -‘Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers’. This album was also the first of 47 studio albums released under the name “Jazz Messengers”.
‘Room 608’ is offered here primarily for analysis. Anyone that can work this up as a solo piano piece has some monster chops! The eight bar intro looks very difficult but the running thirds are just broken chords and actually fall under the fingers quite well. It’s a great exercise. The rest of the piece is fairly straightforward harmonically. The real goal here is to incorporate the left hand punch chords. Silver’s melody sets up the driving rhythm and the chords punctuate the forward motion. Working on even small sections of ‘Room 608’ will help ingrain a hard edged swing into your playing.