Elmo Hope

At 43 years old, Elmo Hope physical status not available right now. We will update Elmo Hope's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

St. Germain.

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

Bud Powell grew up playing and listening to jazz and classical music, and the two were close friends of another influential pianist, Thelonious Monk. Hope went from being arrested as a youth to become a New York-based musician, including trumpeter Clifford Brown and saxophonist John Coltrane, Lou Donaldson, Jackie McLean, and Sonny Rollins.

Hope, a long-time heroin user, had his ability to perform in New York's clubs after a drug arrest, so he moved to Los Angeles in 1957.

He was not happy during his four years on the West Coast, but he had some fruitful relationships there, including with saxophonist Harold Land. Following Hope's return to New York, more leaders followed him, but they did not do anything to bring him more public or critical interest.

His public appearances, which ended a year before his death at the age of 43, were reduced by new drug and health problems.

Despite, or because of, his playing and composing abilities, which were more complex and focused on subtlety and variation rather than the virtuosity prevalent in bebop, he remains little known.

Early life

Elmo Hope was born in New York City on June 27, 1923. Simon and Gertrude Hope's parents, who immigrated from the Caribbean and had many children, were able to speak. Elmo began playing the piano at the age of seven. He took classical music lessons as an infant and has won solo piano recital competitions from 1938. Bud Powell, a fellow pianist, was a childhood friend; they performed and listened to jazz and classical music together. Hope attended Benjamin Franklin High School, which was known for its music program. He had an amazing sense of harmony and composed jazz and classical pieces at school.

Hope was shot by a New York policeman at the age of 17. He was admitted to Sydenham Hospital, where doctors announced that the bullet barely avoided his spine. Hope had been released from the hospital six weeks earlier, he was charged with "assault, attempted robbery, and breach of the Sullivan Act." Hope had been convicted of being part of a group of five people involved in a mugging, according to the police officers involved in the test. None of the other four or any of the three suspected whites were identified by police; hope said he had been running away with other passers-by after police started shooting and was struck while trying to enter a hallway. Hope of all the charges was cleared, according to the judge, who described the shooting as "outrage" and "an attempted frameup."

Hope's recovery was sluggish, and he did not return to school. Rather, he played the piano in a variety of taxi dance halls and other establishments around the city. In 1942, Hope and Powell met fellow pianist Thelonious Monk, and the three young men spent a long time together. As Hope enlisted as a private in the United States Army in March 1943, it was suspended. Hope was listed as single and with dependents in the enlistment files. He had been married and had a son, who died. Hope would be in the army "for the duration of the war [World War II] or another humanitarian crises, plus six months," according to the terms of enlistment.

Source

Later life and career

Hope's absence from the early bebop scene remained relatively unchanged after he left the army, since he was mostly in rhythm and blues bands for a few years. He was a member of an octet led by trumpeter Eddie Robinson late in 1947 and briefly played briefly with Snub Mosley at the same time. Hope was in his first long-term relationship with the Joe Morris band, from 1948 to 1951, and on many recordings. This band toured all around the country.

Any of Hope's members were also interested in jazz. One, saxophonist Johnny Griffin, remembered a group of musicians, including Hope, who performed and learned in New York in the days of late-1940s bebop: "We'd go to Monk's house in Harlem or Elmo's house in the Bronx, we did a lot of playing," says saxophonist Johnny Griffin. I played piano a bit more, so I could see what they were all doing harmonically. However, if anything astounds me, I'd say Elmo would spell out harmonies. We'd play Dizzy [Gillespie]'s tunes or Charlie Parker's."

By June 1953, when Hope recorded in New York as part of a quintet led by trumpeter Clifford Brown and alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson. Marc Myers, a critic, claimed that the six songs were the first in a new style of jazz, 'hard bop,' which has since become extremely popular. Also, Hope helped with the discovery of Alfred Lion, the creator of Blue Note Records, who oversaw his debut as a leader around a week later. This culminated in the 10-inch album Elmo Hope Trio, which featured Morris alumni Percy Heath on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. According to critic Kenny Mathieson in 2012, Hope was more interested in the music's architecture and aural specifics than in individual virtuosity. Elmo Hope Quintet, Volume 2, is a sequel to a previous Blue Note recording session that occurred 11 months ago.

Hope appeared in August 1954 as Piano For A Prestige Records session led by saxophonist Sonny Rollins, which was later identified as Moving Out, and in another session with Donaldson. Hope first came to Prestige in 1955 and performed the trio's Meditations the following year. The sext Informal Jazz was followed by the sextet Informal Jazz the following year, with Donald Byrd (trum), John Coltrane and Hank Mobley (tenor saxophones), Paul Chambers (bass), and Jones (drums). Some commentators have suggested that sessions like this one and the ones with Brown and Rollins were a hindrance to Hope's growth as a result of his musical career: "He too often performed with young, rising overshadowing talents," a Buffalo Jazz Report analyst said in 1976.

Hope appeared in January 1956 with the saxophonist's Lights Out! Hope had appeared on saxophonist Gene Ammons' The Happy Blues in April of the same year, but the artist left the studio before the session began and did not return. Hope said he had traveled to visit an aunt in the hospital, but others blamed his heroin use. This had existed on and off for many years, and it had resulted in at least one spell in jail. Because of Hope's New York City Cabaret Card's drug use and a criminal history, he was unable to play in clubs in the city.

Hope toured with trumpeter Chet Baker in 1957 and then moved to Los Angeles, where he was unable to work in New York due to the performance ban. Soon, he discovered other musicians who had been inspired by bebop, including saxophonist Harold Land and bassist Curtis Counce. In October 1957, Hope performed with Rollins again, and Harold Land, who appeared on Pacific Jazz's website, was not released until 1962, along with the contents of a 1957 Jazz Messengers album. Hope became a member of Counce's band in March of the following year and went on to release two albums with the bassist. During this period, Hope also did some arranging for others, including for Land's 1958 Harold in the Land of Jazz. Hope had his own band, with staff that varied, and he appeared with Lionel Hampton in Hollywood in 1959. Hope travelled north with the Land group to perform in Vancouver later this year after two quartets appeared in San Francisco, the first featuring Rollins, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Lenny McBrowne; the other with Rollins replaced by Land.

Hope appeared on Land's quintet album The Fox in August 1959; he also wrote four of the album's songs. In the opinion of jazz historian David Rosenthal, illustrative of Hope's musical development on the West Coast, this recording and the Elmo Hope Trio from the same year were, as well as Elmo Hope Trio from the same year. The trio album received a rare five-star review from Down Beat magazine, with the comment that Hope's aesthetic was "a bit of bitter-sweet melancholy that seems to lie at the center of other jazzmen [...]. "The world is a bit too much," the English explains.

Hope married Bertha Rosemond (better known as Bertha Hope), whom he met in California in 1960. Hope found his life on the West Coast as a jazz musician. He criticized the dearth of talent in Los Angeles's then-popular church-influenced soul jazz and lamented the lack of work opportunities in the city's few jazz clubs. In 1961, Hope left Los Angeles for Los Angeles. His wife announced that he was no longer employed with Land, had recording offers from businesses based on the East Coast, and that the family and their baby daughter relocated to Los Angeles.

Hope was one of Philly Joe Jones' quintet in June 1961, which also included trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. Hope's old friend, Monk, arranged their first gigs, as well as a recording session for Riverside Records that month, with Hope as the leader. Around 1961, the pianist recorded four albums in New York, including Hope-Full, which featured his sole tracks and a few piano duets with his wife.

In the view of singer and critic Robert Palmer, some of the companies he worked for at this point in his career harmed Hope's reputation.

One album was entitled High Hope!

(1961), and another, Sounds From Rikers Island (1963), in reference to a New York City jail complex that featured solely by musicians who had been jailed for drug-related offences. Hope was briefly detained for a short time as leader between these two sessions. These and other album debuts in the early 1960s did not help to raise Hope's popularity.

Hope returned to McLean in 1962. He was also a piano trio, with Ray Kenney on bass and Lex Humphries on drums; in late 1964, it featured John Ore on bass and Billy Higgins on drums; later in 1963, it had John Ore on bass and Lex Humphries on drums; in late 1964, it had Billy Higgins on drums; and then drummer Billy Higgins. In 1965, Hope was still guiding a trio and quartet in the New York area. However, he continued to play less often in his career due to drugs and health issues. His last recordings were made in 1966, but not for 11 years. In 1966, Hope's last concert appearance was at Judson Hall in New York City. Hope's "hands were all shot up and he couldn't play," a fellow pianist Horace Tapscott said later.

Hope was left feeling that he was being experimented on, so he headed to another, St. Clare's. The treatment was not adjusted for the methadone program he was on, according to his wife, putting more pressure on his heart. In 1967, Hope was hospitalized with pneumonia and died a few weeks later, on May 19, of heart failure. At the time of his husband's death, he was 31 years old. They had three children; Monica Hope, their daughter, became a singer.

Source