This is the seminal album that gave birth to the Blue Note Sound, to Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers and to the Horace Silver Quintet. Shifting be-bop into an earthier, more blues-gospel orbit connected with audiences and forged the direction that hard bop would take for years to come. Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Silver, Doug Watkins and Blakey deliver Horace's compositions with panache and solo with heart-felt invention. A classic.

KENNY DORHAM, trumpet; HANK MOBLEY, tenor sax; HORACE SILVER, piano; DOUG WATKINS, bass; ART BLAKEY, drums

Recorded on November 13, 1954 (#1, 2, 3, 8) and February 6, 1955 (all others) at the Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey