Album: Horace Silver, Live at Newport '58, Blue Note

The joys of a length-and-line hard-bop sesh are unremitting. That's kind of the point of them. So although this newly excavated live date from the pianist/composer's early Blue Note days contains nothing to surprise, shock or even mildly amuse, it does command 45 minutes of your attention with a grip proceeding directly from the music's in-built intensity.

There are only four tunes, and they're played by a quintet fronted by Junior Cook (tenor) and Louis Smith (trumpet), driven by Gene Taylor and Louis Hayes: "Tippin'", "The Outlaw", "Senor Blues", "Cool Eyes".

Hard, funky, slick and sly. Music would never be so hip again.