On this day back in 1661, Baroque composer Georg Bohm was born. He isn’t bad but he wrote a great deal for the organ, and I just don’t much care for that instrument. English poet William Somervile was born in 1665. Economist Henry George was born in 1839. There was a man working 150 years ago who was grappling with the problems of income inequality. And what was his solution: taxes. But somehow the “smart” conservative economists of today just know that won’t work, even though, you know, it does. One of the founders of physical chemistry, Wilhelm Ostwald was born in 1853.

Multimedia artist Romare Bearden was born in 1911. The founder of catastrophe theory, mathematician Rene Thom was born in 1923. The great film director Hal Ashby was born in 1929. The great musician Billy Preston was born in 1946. Here he is doing “Nothing from Nothing”:

Actor Mark Harmon is 62. Keanu Reeves is 49. And Salma Hayek is 47.

The day, however, belongs to the great jazz pianist and composer Horace Silver who is 85 today. He is technically a hard bop artist, but his influences are very broad. You can hear this in “Song for My Father,” which is kind of a bossa nova. You will probably recognize the opening (played much slower on his album cut) which Steely Dan used to open their hit “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.” Even though Silver stopped playing publicly about 15 years back, he left a great recorded legacy.

Happy birthday Horace Silver!