Horace Sliver wrote and played much great and popular music.

In Pittsburgh, his connection with drummer and educator Roger Humphries is notable - while Horace Silver also worked, years earlier, with Pittsburgh’s Art Blakey in the earliest iteration of the Jazz Messengers.

This time on the program, we connect some dots between Horace Sliver, Roger Humphries, trumpeter Louis Smith, Kenny Burrell, Art Blakey, Andy Warhol - and more.

We visit with Roger Humphries on his career that included time with Horace Silver, Ray Charles and more, but which led him back to Pittsburgh for family and to become an iconic jazz educator.

We also hear music from another jazz artist associated with Horace Silver, trumpeter Louis Smith.

Blue Lights Kenny Burrell Andy Warhol.jpg

E. Louis Smith grew up in Memphis, alongside other jazz notables like George Coleman, Harold Maburn and Phineas and Calvin Newborn. After stints in education and a tour in the military, Louis Smith was recorded for Blue Note records and toured, for a time, with Horace Silver. By the 1960’s, he opted to pursue education as his main focus, moving to Ann Arbor, Michigan, working with the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor Public Schools. It was there Louis Smith became a teacher for WZUM’s Scott Hanley - starting with trumpet lessons in elementary school.

Louis Smith went on teach and perform for many years, including a dozen records for Steeplechase records, gigs at jazz festivals around the world, and helping with the Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival for many years. A stroke in 2005 pulled him from performing (and speaking), but he continued to enjoy jazz until he passed in 2016. The sad irony for Scott Hanley was that, as a musician who became a radio professional, while he stayed in contact over the years, he never interviewed one of his greatest influences, Louis Smith.

The interconnection between jazz performers can be amazing to connect - the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” in jazz are many fewer steps, and the common language of music makes the bridging between time and space even shorter.

This time out - we hear Roger Humphries and some stellar recordings with Horace Silver, guitarist Kenny Burrell in a late 1950’s session with Pittsburgh’s Art Blakey and trumpeter Louis Smith, Louis Smith with Cannonball Adderley (who had to go by the name “Buckshot La Funke” for contractual reasons), and the artwork on that Kenny Burrell album was by Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol. And so on and so on.

Jazz makes connections. Hear some of them on the Scene on WZUM.