H/t El Somnambulo
Cape Verde is a small chain of islands about 400 miles off the westernmost point of Africa. It’s home to about 590,000 people, though it has a larger diaspora. None of those people is feeling blue today, as their national soccer team, a first-time entrant in the sport’s World Cup, is on the verge of advancing to the tournament’s knockout round. They managed ties (“draws” in soccer lingo) against two accomplished teams, including powerhouse Spain. A win tonight in their game against Saudi Arabia in Houston will guarantee it.
Horace Silver’s father was part of that diaspora – the family’s last name was originally Silva – and the pianist, a pioneer of hard bop, paid tribute to him with his 1966 LP “The Cape Verdean Blues.” That album followed the previous year’s “Song for My Father,” whose title song is familiar to rock fans because Donald Fagen swiped its introductory piano phrase for “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.”
Horace Silver wrote it for his father. Donald Fagen transformed it into an oblique story from his undergraduate days, about hitting on the young wife of a professor at a party.
