Description
'Mo is On - The Music of Elmo Hope Vol.2' is the second CD from this stellar UK/ European quintet featuring Herwig Gradischnig, tenor sax, Steve Fishwick, trumpet, Claus Raible, piano, Giorgos Antoniou, double bass, and Matt Home, drums, documenting the late pianist and composer, Elmo Hope's classic compositions and arrangements.
St. Elmo Sylvester Hope (1923 - 1967) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, who was a lesser known contemporary of his friends Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. His music, mostly in the bop/hard bop tradition, was both complex and subtle.
As well as featuring two of Hope's reworkings of a couple of classic standards, Invitation and Dearly Beloved the band breathes fresh life into some of Elmo Hope's most challenging compositions, which include " Hot Sauce" a bright " Hard Bop" influenced flag-waver and the curiously titled melancholy ballad " Mirror- Mind Rose".
Both as an introduction to the great music of Elmo Hope and a burning outing for this superlative quintet this CD is highly recommended.