Elmo Hope – Informal Jazz (LP, Analogue Productions)

In the 1950s, Elmo Hope was known to insiders in New York as a pianist and band leader, but was far from being a star of the jazz scene. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t make a great album with them. One Friday in 1956 they met in Rudy van Gelder’s studio. With Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones as the rhythm section, not much could go wrong. But if the tenor saxophonists John Coltrane and Hank Mobley join in and trumpeter Donald Byrd joins in, even an informal jazz album can contain really complex material without much agreement.