For all kinds of reasons, Cape Verdean Blues is a much more modernist offering than Horace Silver’s previous release, Song For My Father, and slightly less well-regarded, but it should not be. Given the addition of 20-year-old trumpeter Woody Shaw – playing on his first Blue Note date – and JJ Johnson on side two, there is a definite sense of exploration at work here. On the original liner notes, Silver reveals how long he had wanted to work with Johnson, whose credit on the record shows the respect in which the pianist held the trombonist. The other musicians on the record are Joe Henderson (tenor saxophone), Bob Cranshaw (bass), and Roger Humphries (drums).

“What really turned me on to my heritage was a vacation I took three years ago in Rio with Sergio Mendes, the Brazilian pianist. Now I’m getting a lot of inspiration from African folk music.” Horace Silver, May 1966