Here we find an interesting and unusual line up in an early manifestation of the Silver band. Clifford Jordan joins the group for this one session and works well with then band regular Art Farmer in his prime. This long overdue re-issue (formerly only available in Japan)includes a reworked version of ‘Safari’ that Silver recorded on his first Blue Note album taken at a rapid tempo, while ‘Moon Rays’ is a hypnotic mid-tempo groover that features a fine solo from Jordan. The latinisms that would become so much a part of the Silver repertoire surface on ‘Pyramid’courtesy of polyrhythms from Louis Hayes. While this was not yet the fully developed Silver sound of the mid-1960s with the likes of Junior Cook and Blue Mitchell and catchy tunes that would cluminate in the hit ‘Song for my father’, the line up on ‘Further Explorations’ is almost there and one wonders what would have happened had this set of musicians stayed together.
