Elmo Hope: Trio and Quintet

Pianist and composer Elmo Hope has more in common with Tadd Dameron than most of his other jazz peers. Both men were primarily composers and arrangers who concentrated on their own music rather than standards. Both men spent their professional lives in New York City during the twilight of bebop and the flourishing of hard bop. Neither man boasted large discographies as leaders, but appeared on a significant number of recordings as sidemen. Their careers were both shortened dramatically by drugs and neglect, with Hope dying in 1967 at 43, and Dameron in 1965 at 48.

Trio and Quintet was a 1989 CD release combining three recording sessions from 1953, 1954 and 1957 that produced the 10-inch LP titles, Elmo Hope Trio (Blue Note Records, 1954), Elmo Hope Quintet, Volume 2 (Blue Note Records, 1957) and Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers/The Elmo Hope Quintet Featuring Harold Land (Pacific Jazz, 1962). This cobbling together of sessions took advantage of the extended capacity of the CD to bring together under one release multiple sessions too short to be released individually. The result is an excellent cross-section of Hope's abilities as a trio and quintet leader and arranger.

Hope's trio sides reveal a composer and performer influenced by his association with Thelonious Monk, producing an elegant piano style like that of Duke Ellington (with the blues aspects toned down). Hope, with bassist Percy Heath and drummer Philly Joe Jones, introduces the collection with a tightly arranged performance of Irving Berlin's "It's a Lovely Day," where the leader expresses Monk's influence in dissonant left-hand bombs during the piece's crescendos. The pianist provides two readings of his "I Got Rhythm" contrafact, "Mo is On," each featuring his taught arranging and brief solo space for Jones. The head has rhythmic complexity predating its increased definition in hard bop. "Hot Sauce" demonstrates Hope's grasp of the panoramic and dramatic with cinematic-like cascades of notes and ideas.

The quintet selections reveal the expansion of Hope's informed arranging to the larger format. "Crazy" (and its alternate take) features trumpeter Charles Freeman Lee and tenor saxophonist Frank Foster recalling the Jazz Messengers, appropriately, with Art Blakey playing the drums and delivering a tasty break to contrast with Jones' trio drumming. "Later for You" shows Hope's contribution to the transition point between bebop and hard bop, with Foster's extended saxophone solo driving the rhythm section rather than the other way around. "St. Elmo's Fire" from Hope's Pacific Jazz release is the only blues of the collection. Bassist Leroy Vinnegar's 4/4 coaxes the piece, providing tenor saxophonist Harold Land and Stu Williamson's muted trumpet plenty of solo space. Elmo Hope was and is certainly underappreciated, and like Dameron, he merits greater retrospective attention. This is transitional music produced when the evolution was rapid and productive.