ELMO HOPE...its for all of YOU ! (on JRR this SAT 7/1/2012).

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

..."AND can I also request Elmo Hope's "Like Someone in Love" from his 1959 "Trio" album on Contemporary, a tragic life, a massively under-rated pianist and one of the really great trio records (Elmo on piano, Frank Butler, drums, Jimmy Bond, bass.) I don't recall you ever playing anything by him? That one's for ME! (and all the participants in the much missed R3 jazz messageboards)."

MR. BLUESNIK.

Happy New Year. Occupy the Occupation.

[elmo]

Bluesie you are so right he really was one of the greatest pianists and composers, the Hi Fi trio album is a masterpiece also Elmo's work on "the fox" - his solo on "one down" is phenomenal.

If you havn't read it get a copy of Robin DG Kelley Thelonious Monk "The life and times of an american genius" there is quite a lot of info about Elmo that I was not aware of including Elmo's run in with the police in his youth (shades of Bud Powell) and how Monk helped Elmo get a gig at the Village Gate in 1963. The book is also the best one I have read on Monk.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

hi elmo



not seen this before!

[geofflikesmusic]

I'm also a big Elmo Hope fan!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Little known Elmo facts...

Elmo was prob. the first in NY to let Albert Ayler sit in with him and not walk away in horror.

Elmo housed Bud Powell when Bud went "missing" on his final return to NY. Childhood friends.

The "missing pianist" on Coltrane's 1957 Prestige trio sessions with Earl May and Art Taylor ("I love you", "Trane''s slow blues" etc.) was Elmo who had scored enough from Bob W/stock to get some drugs and then vanished from the session, and for a week, "to visit his aunt" (sic). He often did this. Not a good career move.

Very moving Obit in Downbeat for Elmo - they played "Monique" at his funeral (Elmo/John Gilmore etc.) - from "Jazz at Riker's Island."


Richard Cooke referred to him as a "Water Colourist" and I know just what he means...Elmo's ballad playing has that sad quality of music thro the rain.

BN (a major fan since I heard Elmo with Sonny Rollins on "Moving Out").

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"In 1967 Elmo was hospitalized with pneumonia for several weeks and while recuperating, succumbed to an apparent heart attack. I had just come back to Down Beat for a second tour of duty as New York editor. The first news story I was asked to cover was this one.

At the funeral home the recording of Elmo's "Monique" played constantly as a bittersweet reminder of what a musician he was and what might have been. As the coffin was about to be closed, his aged father ran toward it sobbing, "My son! My son!" It was a heart-wrenching moment that remains fresh in my mind more than twenty years later.

Elmo died on May 19 but hope had been deceased for some time.

--IRA GITLER, from the liner notes, "Elmo Hope Trio & Quintet"

BN