"Quicksilver" (Alternate Take) from A Night at Birdland Vol. 2 is a second look at Horace Silver's contrafact on "Lover, Come Back to Me," performed live by the Art Blakey Quintet in 1954. Taken at an even more extreme tempo than the Vol. 1 version, exceeding 300 bpm, this alternate take pushes the musicians to their absolute limits. Lou Donaldson opens with two choruses of alto saxophone through the demanding 64-bar AABA form, followed by Clifford Brown's stunning three-chorus trumpet solo, which stands as one of the most remarkable feats of improvisation at speed ever captured on tape. Silver delivers two choruses of rhythmically incisive piano, bassist Curly Russell contributes a rare half-chorus solo, and Blakey closes with a ferocious drum solo over the full 64-bar form. The heightened tempo compared to the first take generates an almost unbearable tension that the soloists channel into increasingly daring musical statements. This performance documents the Art Blakey Quintet operating at the outer edge of what was technically possible in jazz, achieving a level of collective virtuosity that remains awe-inspiring decades later.
