Gone To See T – Bertha Hope

Living in New York in the 1960s, Bertha and her husband Elmo Hope would often hang out with Thelonious Monk. Elmo was one of Monk's favorite players and composers, one of "The Three Musketeers" along with Monk and Bud Powell. As Bertha describes it, they never knew what the day would bring when they went to see Thelonious. They were "Gone To See T" ("T" was a family nickname for Thelonious).

Check out Bertha, saxophonist Jerry Dodgion and bassist Putter Smith talking about Elmo in Los Angeles on our YouTube channel.

Don Sickler: "My musical involvement with Bertha began when we were going over her husband Elmo Hope's music. We were trying to notate it accurately so others could play it. Fortunately for me and for all other musicians, Bertha has a deep personal knowledge of Elmo's music. I soon realized that Bertha was a tremendous musician and composer in her own right. This is the first of many of her compositions that we'll make available on jazzleadsheets.com."

There are other great titles on Bertha's album.

Glenn Zaleski really captures the rhythmic feel of Bertha Hope's original version—n between even and swing 8th notes. Check out more songs from this project.

The form of Bertha Hope's solo piano arrangement is AABCD, with C and D being the same as two more A sections (D slows down to end). The A section has the same bass line and voicings as Bertha's original trio recording. At B, the left hand again plays the bass line from the lead sheet, but adding fifths or sevenths on beats 1 and 3. Meanwhile the right hand adds voicings behind the melody. This arrangement has more dynamic detail than the lead sheet, with swells on the first and second measures of A.