Photo above: Jazz legend Horace Silver with jazz hosts Heidi Chang and Pete Fallico at Yoshi’s in Oakland. 1994. 

(Blog update: On a very sad note, this blog post was written before Horace Silver died on June 18, 2014. He was 85.)

Nothing gets you in the groove quite like Horace Silver’s tune “Song For My Father.” When the jazz master wrote the song back in 1964, he dedicated it to his father who was from the Cape Verdean islands. And I loved playing it on the air when I hosted a jazz show, especially on Father’s Day!

After my own father died, I used to chat with Horace on Father’s Day. Over the years, the talented pianist and composer who was born in 1928, has inspired so many people with his music and made friends around the world. Sadly, I’ve heard reports he’s been ill.

Here’s a look back at my last chat with Horace: This is an excerpt from my column on “What a difference a little taste of jazz can make,” published in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on June 22, 2003.

Last Father’s Day, as I was listening to “Song For My Father” by jazz musician Horace Silver, I couldn’t help thinking about how much its infectious melody has a way of lifting my spirits.

Horace wrote the song as a tribute to his dad, who was black-Portuguese from the Cape Verdean islands off the coast of Africa. He combined the Cape Verdean folk music he heard as a child with the bossa nova rhythms he heard when Sergio Mendes invited him to visit Brazil. After “Song For My Father” was released in 1964, it became a jazz standard performed by countless musicians. You can even hear the song’s bass line in Steely Dan’s 1974 pop hit “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.”

When Horace and I talked story recently, he said he was pleased that “Song For My Father” remains his most popular song. Lately, the 74-year-old jazz legend has been working on his autobiography at his home in Malibu, and he has quite a story to tell. The prolific composer, pianist and band-leader has been a major creative influence in jazz for more than half a century. He’s known as the father of hard bop piano and for his funky, bluesy style, which pioneered the soul-jazz movement of the 1950s and ’60s.

Horace said that in his book he plans to recount a visit he made to Hawaii many years ago. Back then, I was hosting a jazz show on KGU radio when Horace dropped by for an interview. I mentioned that it happened to be jazz trombonist Trummy Young’s birthday. So Horace called Trummy to wish him well and told him how much he loved the Jimmie Lunceford band, which Trummy once played in.

Horace’s father took him to see that band when he was 11 years old and living in Connecticut.

“When I saw the Jimmie Lunceford band I was flabbergasted. They sounded so great. The music just touched my soul. And I said to myself, that’s what I want to be, a musician,” Horace recalled.

A little inspiration goes a long way. In 1950, jazz saxophonist Stan Getz took Horace on the road with him, back in the days when blacks and whites weren’t allowed to eat together in restaurants. Some of the band members would wait in the car for Getz to bring them food. Horace went on to perform with other jazz greats such as Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Miles Davis and Art Blakey.

Through the years, Horace has nurtured many talented musicians in his own bands…

You can read about Horace’s amazing musical journey in his book Let’s Get to the Nitty Gritty : The Autobiography of Horace Silver, which came out in 2006. Phil Pastras edited the book and Joe Zawinul wrote the foreword. In the book, Horace also recounts his visit with me in Hawaii and Los Angeles.

Happy Father’s Day to all of the fathers on this special day! And thank you Horace Silver for your extraordinary gift of music and for always being a friend.