"I have to remind myself that I'm in my 60s," he admits, cheerfully chattering with the speed and enthusiasm of a teenager. "But I have a lot of mental energy, and sometimes I just overdo it."

Nothing has ever been able to slow him down for long, be it spinal scoliosis (curvature) and a host of childhood diseases, ideological differences with Blue Note (the label of his first success), the frustrations of launching his own independent labels, or a near-death medical complication which followed his return to a major label (Columbia) in 1993.

"I'm determined not to stand still," states Silver. "And I'm not gonna throw away 'Senor Blues', 'Sister Sadie', 'Filthy McNasty', and 'Nica's Dream'. Those are great tunes I wrote, and I love 'em, I'm glad the people love 'em, and I'm gonna still play 'em. But I'm gonna play new stuff too."

A small portion of the new stuff can be found on his two Columbia albums, "It's Got to Be Funky" and "Pistol Packin' Papa". But there's also a reworking of the haunting, Latiny "Senor Blues" and a "Song For My Father" with fresh lyrics by the composer replacing those made famous by Leon Thomas. "After my father died, I felt I should say something about how I felt about him personally," Silver points out. "My lyrics fit fathers in general, but are more specific."

The moody mode of that song, Silver's most famous, reflects the Cape Verdean origins of the elder Silver, who raised his son in Norwalk, Connecticut. "I was always a skinny, weak, sickly kid," the pianist reflects. "My Dad, god bless him, fed us well --- my Mother died when I was nine ---, but we weren't into no nutrition. We ate vegetables out of a can, we didn't know no better."

As he grew towards jazz and the wider world in his 20's, Silver began to question some of the habits and precepts of his youth. "I was asking questions that Catholicism could not answer: who am I, where do I come from, where am I going, and what's the purpose of life," he explains. "And I wasn't satisfied with confession, once a week saying I'm sorry for something and going out the next week and doing the same thing and getting absolution."For a budding jazz musician, though, Silver really wasn't much of a sinner, and he ironically credits his fragile health for his forced abstinence from most drugs and alcohol. "It was a blessing in disguise, actually," he chuckles. "I knew that I had to take care of myself, I couldn't stretch out with that stuff like some of those other musicians were doing. They would offer it to me, but I would refuse."

Among Silver's early colleagues was Stan Getz, who toured with Silver's trio and was first to record the pianist's catchy tunes in 1950 and '51. Over the next couple of years, while backing the likes of Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young at Birdland, Silver began recording under his own name with Art Blakey, which led to the founding of the Jazz Messengers in 1955. Silver later evolved his own quintet (replacing Blakey with Louis Hayes) and recorded a legendary set of albums for Blue Note in the '50s and '60s.

While under chiropractic care in his thirties, Silver was advised to curb his consumption of red meat and junk food. He also sought spiritual advice from this practitioner. "I'd experienced a phenomenon I couldn't explain, but I'm not going to go into what it was," states Silver. "I couldn't call my father, 'cause he would think I was nuts. So I called Doc Hamilton, who said, 'I think they're trying to get in touch with you', and he recommended I contact a medium at a New York church, the Reverend Beulah Brown. She gave sermons and then gave messages [to the departed] and got answers. She was right on the money; it was like someone giving you a lead on a horse race."

Brown officiated at Silver's wedding and told the couple they'd be moving to California. She also alerted him to the spiritual name "Silveto", which he later affixed to his commercial operations.

For a long time, Silver's transcendent predilections were mostly unknown to his fans and fellow musicians, who associated his name with his earthy, percussive pianistic style and infectious melodies. But Blue Note executives were eventually forced to listen to Silver's different drummer and were uneasy with what they heard. In the '70s, the pianist had begun recruiting vocalists, strings, and woodwinds into albums on his "United States of Mind" and "Silver 'n" series and was turning his lyrics and themes towards a mission of physical and spiritual health.

"I was just supposed to do straight-ahead jazz," says Silver about the executives's attitude. "They called me into the office after the first of those albums and said, 'Horace, this is nice, but it's not selling as well as your other stuff. Why don't you go back to doing your regular thing and you can do this other stuff later?' So I said, 'Look in my contract: I'm supposed to have rein to do my own thing. . . If it doesn't sell, you can can me'."

In the meantime, Silver had connected with a London medium, Ina Twig, while performing at Ronnie Scott's. "She told me I was going to start a record company and run it out of my own home. And I hadn't thought about no record company! . . . But I thought about my spiritual aspirations in terms of the music, how I had to fight with Blue Note or anyone else to produce them because they don't understand where I'm coming from."

Following Twig's premonition, Silver (who'd been divorced some while after the birth of his son) founded his own Silveto label in the '80s to carry his new creations and the Emerald label for a series of previously unreleased material teaming him with Joe Henderson, Clark Terry, and others. The Silveto sessions featured Bobby Shew, Eddie Harris, Billy Hart, and singer Andy Bey, but Silver is careful to note that, "They didn't have to be in tune with where I was coming from mentally and spiritually. I told them, 'Just give me the music, put your heart and soul into it, and I'll project the spiritual part'."

One of the most delightful of the Silveto lp series, "Music to Ease Your Disease", exemplifies Silver's tasty approach to missionizing. Carried on the creamy, bluesy voice of Bey, the lyrics gently advise the listener to, "Try forgiving, try forgetting", "Tie your dreams to a star", "Learn from all your confrontations", and "Start giving our time and our effort to help our brothers in distress". The instrumental sounds under and between these messages are certifiable Silver, with his pumping piano propelling the horn work or Clark Terry and Junior Cook in a fashion evocative of the best of Blue Note.

But many of Silver's longtime fans as well as musicians and critics shared the skepticism of his former label. "They weren't ready to accept what I was saying, 'cause it sort of forced them to examine themselves," he reflected, "and people don't like to examine themselves 'cause a lot of times they don't like what they see."

After failing to find a distributor and being forced to hawk his lp's between live performance sets and stash the sizable remainder in his Malibu garage, Silver bowed to the wisdom of returning to a major in 1993. "I'm not as metaphysical with the lyrics with Columbia as I was with Silveto", he says. "I told them when I signed the contract, 'I'm gonna try to give you something you can sell'."

"It's Got to Be Funky" was self-produced and recorded by what the composer called the Silver Brass Ensemble. "It's a little more of an expanded sound, and I was having fun hearing all the harmony coming back at me when the six horns played it," he reflects with visible delight. "But you hear plenty of Horace Silver in there, it's not overarranged."

Before proceeding to "Pistol Packin' Poppa", his second for Columbia, Silver underwent a simple hernia operation which nearly ended everything. "The way the system is set up in this country, the insurance companies don't want to pay to keep you in the hospital for observation, so you're in and out the same day. I was in and out on Thursday, and on Saturday I noticed I was having trouble catching my breath."

The hospital readmitted him but couldn't figure out what the problem was. A week later he was in intensive care with tubes inserted in his throat and nose, and his ex-wife and son were summoned to his bedside. "I had no out-of-body experience", he reflects with a hint of regret, "but when they told me about it afterwards, it scared me. I almost checked out, and I didn't even know it."

Eventually the medical staff determined that Silver, after the hernia surgery, had developed clots in his legs which had moved up into his lungs, "but they still haven't given me any explanation of where they came from." He notes that friends in Europe, such as expatriate saxophonist Johnny Griffin, have enjoyed much better attention in hospitals there.

But Silver is keeping guard himself over both his health and his career. His next album is due out in June on GRP/Impulse, featuring ten new tunes recorded by the pianist and six old friends: Claudio Roditi, Michael Brecker, Steve Turre, Ronnie Cuber, Ron Carter, and Louis Nash. Soon after its release, Silver take to the skies for his annual summertime tour of the U.S. and Europe with his traveling group.

And he continues to watch what he eats. "Every now and then I have a hankering for a steak, and I'll fix it with a big slew of onions and garlic and man, I'll smack my chops and have a ball," he admits. "But after that, I don't have no more desire for another six or eight months."

His persistent optimism and ingenuousness are reflected in his gallery of role models, sitting in photo frames atop his grand piano: Hopalong Cassidy and Judy Garland, alongside mentors such as Monk, Scott Joplin, Eubie Blake, and Alexander Scriabin. Nearby, in boxes, are piles of sheet music and tapes bearing creations as yet unheard by us. "I've thanked God for sparing my life," he says, "so I can hopefully complete my musical dreams before I die."

Check out "Song For My Father" from It's Got To Be Funky on Columbia.