Nica's Dream

"Nica's Dream" is a jazz standard{{cite web|title=NPR's Jazz Profiles: Horace Silver|url=https://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_silver_horace.htm|access-date=August 5, 2012}} composed by Horace Silver in 1954. It is one of many songs written in tribute to jazz patroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/02/obituaries/baroness-pannonica-de-koenigswarter-74.html|title=Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, 74|date=December 2, 1988|access-date=August 5, 2012|work=New York Times }} The song was first recorded by the Jazz Messengers in 1956, and has since been recorded by many other artists. It features jazz melodic minor harmony with prominent minor-major 7th chords. Its first studio recording by Silver was on the Horace-Scope album.

Thomas Owens describes the composition – "The trumpet melody, one of the great themes in jazz literature, is a 64-measure song in aaba form. The accompaniment for the a sections is in a Latin style based on [...] one of Silver's favorite patterns. In the bridge the accompaniment alternates between backbeat chordal punctuations and four-beat swing. During the solos the rhythm section maintains the same accompanimental textures, which both clarify the form and maintain the theme's original moods and textures."{{cite book

|title=Bebop – The Music and Its Players

|url=https://archive.org/details/bebopmusicitspla00owen_905

|url-access=limited

|first=Thomas

|last=Owens

|publisher=Oxford University Press

|year=1996

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bebopmusicitspla00owen_905/page/n238 222]

|isbn=978-0-19-510651-0

}}

A vocal version was first recorded by Feather in 1983, and released the following year on the album Zanzibar.{{Cite web|url=https://secondhandsongs.com/performance/129770/versions|title=Cover versions of Nica's Dream by Feather | SecondHandSongs|website=SecondHandSongs}}