Elmo Hope

St. Elmo Sylvester Hope (June 27, 1923 – May 19, 1967) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, chiefly in the bebop and hard bop genres.

He grew up playing and listening to jazz and classical music with Bud Powell, and both were close friends of another influential pianist, Thelonious Monk.

Elmo Hope was born on June 27, 1923, in New York City.

His parents, Simon and Gertrude Hope, were immigrants from the Caribbean, and had several children.

Elmo began playing the piano aged seven.

He had classical music lessons as a child, and won solo piano recital contests from 1938.

Fellow pianist Bud Powell was a childhood friend; together, they played and listened to jazz and classical music.

Hope attended Benjamin Franklin High School, which was known for its music program.

He developed an excellent understanding of harmony, and composed jazz and classical pieces at school.

At the age of 17, Hope was shot by a New York policeman.

He was taken to Sydenham Hospital, where doctors reported that the bullet had narrowly missed his spine.

Six weeks later, after Hope had been released from the hospital, he appeared in court, charged with "assault, attempted robbery and violation of the Sullivan Law".

The police officers involved testified in court that Hope had been part of a group of five involved in a mugging.

None of the other four, or any of the three alleged white victims, was identified by police; Hope stated that he had been running away with other passers-by after police started shooting, and was hit while trying to enter a hallway.

The judge freed Hope of all the charges, after which Hope's attorney described the shooting as an "outrage", and the charges as "an attempted frameup".

Hope's recovery was slow, and he did not go back to school.

Instead, he played the piano in an assortment of taxi dance halls and other establishments in the city.

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: "We'd go to Monk's house in Harlem or to Elmo's house in the Bronx, we just did a lot of playing. I played piano a bit, too, so I could hear what they were all doing harmonically. But if something stumped me, I'd ask and Elmo would spell out harmonies. We'd play Dizzy [Gillespie]'s tunes or Charlie Parker's."

Hope and Powell met fellow pianist Thelonious Monk in 1942, and the three young men spent much time together.

This was interrupted in March 1943, when Hope enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army.

In the enlistment records, Hope was listed as being single, with dependents.

He had been married and had a son, who died.

The terms of enlistment stated that Hope would be in the army "for the duration of the War [World War II] or other emergency, plus six months".

Hope's absence from the early bebop scene largely continued after he left the army, as he played principally in rhythm and blues bands for a few years.

He was part of an octet led by trumpeter Eddie Robinson late in 1947, and played briefly with Snub Mosley around the same time.

Hope had his first long-term association, with the Joe Morris band, from 1948 to 1951, including for several recordings.

This band toured all over the United States.

Some of those Hope met in Morris' band were also interested in jazz.

Hope survived being shot by police as a youth to become a New York-based musician who recorded with several emerging stars in the early to mid-1950s, including trumpeter Clifford Brown, and saxophonists John Coltrane, Lou Donaldson, Jackie McLean, and Sonny Rollins.

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.

Critic Marc Myers suggested that the six songs the band recorded were the first in a new form of jazz, 'hard bop', that became highly influential.

That 1953 session also helped Hope gain exposure with Blue Note Records' producer Alfred Lion, who supervised his debut recording as a leader around a week later.

This resulted in the 10-inch album Elmo Hope Trio, which had Morris alumni Percy Heath on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums.

A long-term heroin user, Hope had his license to perform in New York's clubs withdrawn after a drug conviction, so he moved to Los Angeles in 1957.

He was not happy during his four years on the West Coast, but had some successful collaborations there, including with saxophonist Harold Land.

More recordings as leader ensued following Hope's return to New York, but they did little to gain him more public or critical attention.

Further drug and health problems reduced the frequency of his public performances, which ended a year before his death, at the age of 43.

He remains 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.

The tracks recorded illustrated, according to critic Kenny Mathieson in 2012, that Hope was interested in the architecture and aural detail of the music more than in individual virtuosity.

A further Blue Note recording session 11 months later led to Elmo Hope Quintet, Volume 2.