Elmo Hope
Encyclopedia
St. Elmo Sylvester Hope (June 27, 1923 – May 19, 1967) was an American
jazz
pianist
, performing chiefly in the bop
and hard bop
genres. His highly individual piano-playing and, especially, his compositions have led a few enthusiasts and critics such as David Rosenthal
to place him alongside his contemporaries Bud Powell
and Thelonious Monk
(one could also compare him to Herbie Nichols
), but he remains less recognized than his colleagues.
Hope began his career with the Joe Morris
band. From 1953 he recorded in New York as a leader and as a sideman with Sonny Rollins
, Lou Donaldson
, Clifford Brown
, and Jackie McLean
, but moved to Los Angeles
in 1957 after losing his cabaret card in New York City for drug use. He performed with Chet Baker
before moving, and with Lionel Hampton
after, and recorded with Harold Land
and Curtis Counce
in Los Angeles. He also recorded as a leader with Frank Foster
, John Coltrane
, Hank Mobley
, Art Blakey
, Paul Chambers
, and Philly Joe Jones
. Hope recorded on a number of occasions in the trio format and more rarely as a leader of a quintet for Blue Note
, Prestige
, Riverside
and other labels.
Disillusioned with the West Coast scene, Hope returned to New York in 1961, where he went to prison briefly on drug charges then returned to playing, but recorded more rarely. He was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1967 and died a few weeks later of heart failure.
Later pianists who cite Hope as their main influence include bebop pianists Frank Hewitt
(1935–2002), and Sacha Perry. Roswell Rudd
composed a song for Elmo Hope named Hope No. 2. He called Elmo Hope (in a concert with Archie Shepp): "A great and fine composer and remains one of America's well kept secrets". Modern jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel
has repeatedly mentioned Hope as an influence during seminars and interviews.
His wife Bertha (Rosamond) Hope (born November 8, 1936) also a pianist, participated in a duo recording with her husband in 1961 and has released albums dedicated to her late spouse's compositions.
As sideman
With Clifford Brown
With John Coltrane
With Harold Land
With Sonny Rollins
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, performing chiefly in the bop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
and hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
genres. His highly individual piano-playing and, especially, his compositions have led a few enthusiasts and critics such as David Rosenthal
David H. Rosenthal
David H. Rosenthal was an American author, poet, editor, and translator. He wrote mostly on the history of Jazz music and was also an important translator of Portuguese and Catalan literature.-Selected books:* Eyes on the Street...
to place him alongside his contemporaries Bud Powell
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...
and Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
(one could also compare him to Herbie Nichols
Herbie Nichols
Herbie Nichols , was an American jazz pianist and composer who wrote the jazz standard "Lady Sings the Blues". Obscure during his lifetime, he is now highly regarded by many musicians and critics.-Life:...
), but he remains less recognized than his colleagues.
Hope began his career with the Joe Morris
Joe Morris (trumpeter)
Joe Morris was an American jazz and rhythm and blues trumpeter and bandleader.Born in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, Morris began his career as a jazz trumpeter, working and recording with Earl Bostic, Milt Buckner, Arnett Cobb, Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Griffin, Buddy Rich, Dinah Washington,...
band. From 1953 he recorded in New York as a leader and as a sideman with Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
, Lou Donaldson
Lou Donaldson
Lou Donaldson is a jazz alto saxophonist. He was born in Badin, North Carolina. He is best known for his soulful, bluesy approach to playing the alto saxophone, although in his formative years he was, as many were of the bebop era, heavily influenced by Charlie Parker.His first recordings were...
, Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
, and Jackie McLean
Jackie McLean
John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City.-Biography:McLean's father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra...
, but moved to Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
in 1957 after losing his cabaret card in New York City for drug use. He performed with Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
before moving, and with Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
after, and recorded with Harold Land
Harold Land
Harold de Vance Land was an American hard bop and post-bop tenor saxophonist. Land developed his hard bop playing with the Max Roach/Clifford Brown band into a personal, modern style. His tone was strong and emotional, yet displayed a certain fragility that made him easy to...
and Curtis Counce
Curtis Counce
Curtis Counce was an American hard bop and West Coast jazz double bassist. The fruit of his 1956 Contemporary Records studio collaboration with tenor saxophonist Harold Land, trumpeters Jack Sheldon and Gerald Wilson, pianist Carl Perkins and drummer Frank Butler was issued in 2007 on a double CD...
in Los Angeles. He also recorded as a leader with Frank Foster
Frank Foster (musician)
Frank Foster was an American tenor and soprano saxophonist, flautist, arranger, and composer. Foster collaborated frequently with Count Basie and worked as a bandleader from the early 1950s.-Biography:...
, John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Hank Mobley
Hank Mobley
Henry Mobley was an American hard bop and soul jazz tenor saxophonist and composer. Mobley was described by Leonard Feather as the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone", a metaphor used to describe his tone that was neither as aggressive as John Coltrane nor as mellow as Stan Getz...
, Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
, Paul Chambers
Paul Chambers
Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers, Jr. was a jazz bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the length and breadth of his work in this short period but also his impeccable time, intonation, and virtuosic...
, and Philly Joe Jones
Philly Joe Jones
Joseph Rudolph Jones was a Philadelphia-born United States jazz drummer, known as the drummer for the Miles Davis Quintet.Philly Joe Jones was often confused with another influential jazz drummer, Jo Jones...
. Hope recorded on a number of occasions in the trio format and more rarely as a leader of a quintet for Blue Note
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
, Prestige
Prestige Records
Prestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
, Riverside
Riverside Records
Riverside Records was a United States record label specializing in jazz. Founded by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer under his firm Bill Grauer Productions, Inc. in 1953, the label was a major presence in the jazz record industry for a decade...
and other labels.
Disillusioned with the West Coast scene, Hope returned to New York in 1961, where he went to prison briefly on drug charges then returned to playing, but recorded more rarely. He was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1967 and died a few weeks later of heart failure.
Later pianists who cite Hope as their main influence include bebop pianists Frank Hewitt
Frank Hewitt
Frank Hewitt was a hard bop jazz pianist. Born in Queens, Hewitt lived most of his life in Harlem. His mother was a church pianist, and his initial study was classical and gospel music, but switched to jazz after hearing a Charlie Parker record. He took the bop pianists Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell...
(1935–2002), and Sacha Perry. Roswell Rudd
Roswell Rudd
Roswell Rudd is a Grammy Award-nominated American jazz trombonist and composer....
composed a song for Elmo Hope named Hope No. 2. He called Elmo Hope (in a concert with Archie Shepp): "A great and fine composer and remains one of America's well kept secrets". Modern jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel
Kurt Rosenwinkel
Kurt Rosenwinkel is an American jazz guitarist and keyboardist who came to prominence in the 1990s.-Biography:He attended the Berklee School of Music for two and a half years before leaving in his junior year to tour with Gary Burton, the dean of the school at the time...
has repeatedly mentioned Hope as an influence during seminars and interviews.
His wife Bertha (Rosamond) Hope (born November 8, 1936) also a pianist, participated in a duo recording with her husband in 1961 and has released albums dedicated to her late spouse's compositions.
Discography
As leader- Informal JazzInformal JazzInformal Jazz is an album by jazz musician Elmo Hope, released in 1956 on Prestige Records, catalogue 7043. It has been reissued in 1969 as Two Tenors under the billing of Hope's sidemen for the session, John Coltrane and Hank Mobley.-Reception:...
(1956) - Trio and Quintet (Blue Note, 1953–57) with Stu WilliamsonStu WilliamsonStu Williamson was an American jazz trumpeter.Born in Brattleboro, Vermont, Williamson was the younger brother of jazz pianist Claude Williamson. Williamson relocated to Los Angeles in 1949 and became a regular on the West Coast scene, playing with Stan Kenton , Woody Herman , Billy May, and...
, Harold Land, Frank Foster, Percy HeathPercy HeathPercy Heath was an American jazz bassist, brother to tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath and drummer Albert Heath, with whom he formed the Heath Brothers in 1975...
, Leroy VinnegarLeroy VinnegarLeroy Vinnegar was an American jazz bassist.Born in Indianapolis, the self-taught Vinnegar established his reputation in Los Angeles during the 1950s and 1960s. His trademark was the rhythmic "walking" bass line, a steady series of ascending or descending notes, and it brought him the nickname...
, Frank ButlerFrank Butler (musician)Frank Butler was an American jazz drummer. Butler was born in Kansas City, Missouri, but later moved west and was associated in large part with the West Coast school...
, Philly Joe Jones - Meditations (OJC, 1958) with John OreJohn OreJohn Ore is an American jazz bassist.Ore attended the New School of Music in Philadelphia from 1943-46, studying cello, and followed this with studies on bass at Juilliard....
, Willie JonesWillie JonesWillie Jones may refer to:*Willie Jones , North Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress*Willie Jones , U.S. Major League Baseball player... - Homecoming! (OJC, 1961) reissued in the 1970s as the second half of All Star Sessions with Donald ByrdDonald ByrdDonaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II, is an American jazz and rhythm and blues trumpeter. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd is best known as one of the only bebop jazz musicians who successfully pioneered the funk and soul genres while simultaneously remaining a...
, Blue MitchellBlue MitchellRichard Allen Mitchell was an American jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock, and funk trumpeter, known for many albums recorded as leader and sideman for Riverside, Blue Note and then Mainstream Records.-Biography:...
, John ColtraneJohn ColtraneJohn William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Jimmy HeathJimmy HeathJames Edward Heath , nicknamed Little Bird, is an American jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger. He is the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.-Biography:...
, Hank Mobley, Percy Heath - Plays his Original Compositions (Fresh Sound, 1961) with Paul Chambers, Butch WarrenButch WarrenEdward "Butch" Warren is an American jazz double bassist who plays in the hard bop genre. He was especially active in the late-50s and the 1960s.-Biography:...
, Granville Hogan, Philly Joe Jones - The Final Sessions (Evidence, 1966) John Ore, Clifford JarvisClifford JarvisClifford Jarvis was an American hard bop and free jazz drummer.After studying at Berklee in the 1950s he established himself in jazz between 1959 and 1966 by recording with Chet Baker, Randy Weston, Yusef Lateef, Freddie Hubbard, Barry Harris, Jackie McLean, and Elmo Hope, and playing with Grant...
, Philly Joe Jones
As sideman
With Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
- Memorial AlbumMemorial AlbumMemorial Album is an album by American jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown composed of tracks recorded at two sessions in 1953 and originally released on the Blue Note label in 1956...
(Blue Note, 1953)
With John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
- Two TenorsTwo TenorsTwo Tenors is an album credited to jazz musicians John Coltrane and Hank Mobley, released in 1969 on Prestige Records, catalogue 7670. It is a reissue of Prestige 7043 Informal Jazz by Elmo Hope, released in 1956...
(Prestige, 1956)
With Harold Land
Harold Land
Harold de Vance Land was an American hard bop and post-bop tenor saxophonist. Land developed his hard bop playing with the Max Roach/Clifford Brown band into a personal, modern style. His tone was strong and emotional, yet displayed a certain fragility that made him easy to...
- The Fox (1959)
With Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
- Moving OutMoving Out (album)-Track listing:All compositions by Sonny Rollins except as indicatedSide one# "Moving Out" - 4:31# "Swingin' for Bumsy" - 5:48# "Silk 'n' Satin" - 4:03Side two# "Solid" - 6:27# "More Than You Know" - 10:48...
(1954)