Artist: Elmo Hope
St. Elmo Sylvester Hope was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, chiefly in the bebop and hard bop genres. He grew up with Bud Powell, and both were close friends with Thelonious Monk.
He remains relatively little known, despite, or because of, the individuality of his playing and composing, which were complex and stressed subtlety and variation rather than the virtuosity predominant in bebop.
After service in the U.S. Army through World War II, he played principally in rhythm and blues bands for a few years. Hope had his first long-term association with the Joe Morris band, from 1948 to 1951, including for several recordings. Some of those Hope met in Morris' band were also interested in jazz. One, saxophonist Johnny Griffin, recalled a group of musicians, including Hope, who practiced and learned together in New York in the days of late-1940s bebop.
This interest had expanded by June 1953, when Hope recorded in New York as part of a quintet led by trumpeter Clifford Brown and alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson. In August 1954, Hope was pianist for a Prestige Records session led by saxophonist Sonny Rollins, which was released as Moving Out, and for another session with Donaldson. Hope signed to Prestige in 1955 and recorded the trio album Meditations for them that year. This was followed by the sextet Informal Jazz the following year, with Donald Byrd (trumpet), John Coltrane and Hank Mobley (tenor saxophones), Paul Chambers (bass), and Jones (drums).
In January 1956, Hope recorded with another rising star, Jackie McLean, for the saxophonist's Lights Out!
Hope toured with trumpeter Chet Baker in 1957, and then moved to Los Angeles, where he soon found other musicians who had been influenced by bebop, including saxophonist Harold Land and bassist Curtis Counce. Hope played with Rollins again, and, in October 1957, recorded a session known as The Elmo Hope Quintet Featuring Harold Land, which Pacific Jazz did not release until 1962, along with the contents of a 1957 Jazz Messengers album.
In March of the following year, Hope became part of Counce's band, and went on to record two albums with the bassist.
Back in Los Angeles in August 1959, Hope was pianist for Land's quintet album The Fox; he also wrote four of the album's compositions. This recording, along with Elmo Hope Trio from the same year, were, in the opinion of jazz historian David Rosenthal, illustrative of Hope's musical development on the West Coast. The trio album received a rare five-star review from Down Beat magazine.
In June 1961, Hope was part of Philly Joe Jones' quintet, which included trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. Their first gigs were arranged by Hope's old friend, Monk, as was a recording session for Riverside Records that month, with Hope as leader. The pianist recorded four albums in New York around 1961, including Hope-Full, which contained his only solo tracks and some piano duets with his wife.
Further information about Elmo Hope is found here and here.
This content was excerpted from the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmo_Hope, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
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Elmo Hope: Videos
Elmo Hope Trio Meditations
Elmo Hope Sextet - Informal Jazz (1956) (Full Album)