Nieta – Elmo Hope
A classic example of Elmo's later style.
- Recording: Harold Land - Harold In The Land Of Jazz
- Recorded on: January 13 &14, 1958
- Label: Contemporary (C 3550)
- Concert Key: C minor
- Style: Latin/swing (medium)
- Trumpet - Rolf Ericson
- Tenor Sax - Harold Land
- Piano - Carl Perkins
- Bass - Leroy Vinnegar
- Drums - Frank Butler
As you'll hear from our audio excerpt, Elmo sets up the melody with an eight-measure Latin intro. After the 32-measure melody, an eight-measure tutti rhythmical-hits-only interlude section section launches the first solo (tenor sax); after piano and trumpet solos, it reappears to send off the drum solo.
All rhythm section info is on the Concert Condensed Score, and this part will also give your pianist the opportunity to play any harmony parts played by the second part on the recording, if you're playing it in a quartet situation.
The groove that drummer Frank Butler plays on the head is a sort of "jazz-Latin" feel with swing eighth notes; another Elmo Hope song that uses this feel is De-Dah.
Also from this Harold Land album is one of the essential groove tunes, Carl Perkins' Grooveyard (available very soon).
Elmo Hope
June 27, 1923 – May 19, 1967
An imaginative pianist who valued subtlety over virtuosity in the landscape of bebop, Elmo Hope never achieved the fame that his close friends did, perhaps because he so rejected stylistic norms of the time. Elmo was a classically trained pianist with technique rivaling that of his childhood friend Bud Powell and a composer of music whose inventiveness and complexity approaches that of Thelonious Monk. In fact, Elmo, Thelonious and Bud used to hang out so much together in the late 1940s they became known as "The Three Musketeers." Powell, in Francis Paudras' book "Dance of the Infidels" is quoted as saying, "You gotta hear Elmo. He's fabulous. His stuff is very hard. He does some things that even I have trouble playing." Read more...