Elmo Hope at 100
Friday, September 29, 2023 | 7:30 p.m. Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall
José García-León, DeanArtist Profiles
Jazz pianist and educator Bertha Hope was born in Los Angeles in 1936 to dancer Corrine Meaux and movie actor Clinton Rosemond. She attended Manual Arts High School, studied piano privately, and studied harmony and theory at Los Angeles City College. She received a B.A. in Early Childhood Education from Antioch College in Ohio. In her youth she collaborated and performed in local clubs with Vi Redd (Sweethearts of Rhythm), Teddy Edwards, and the Johnny Otis Band. Her contemporaries included the notable jazz artists Billy Higgins and Eric Dolphy.
Bertha married pianist and composer Elmo Hope in Los Angeles in 1960 and moved to the Bronx, New York. The musicallygifted couple had three children: Monica, Kevin, and Daryl. Elmo was a contemporary of and great friend to Bud Powell and Theolonius Monk, and their collaboration spawned a new improvisational era in jazz piano performance. Elmo passed in 1967.
Bertha has continued to present her husband’s music in time-honored New York venues such as Bradley’s, the Knickerbocker, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, and Birdland. Together with her second husband, bassist Walter Booker Jr., she formed ELMOllenium, a tribute group, and the Elmo Hope Project. She served as Artist-in-Residence under the auspices of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts with Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Foster, and Philly Joe Jones.
Bertha is also a composer and arranger
with several recordings under her own name, including In Search of Hope and Elmo’s Fire (SteepleChase Records), Between Two Kings (Minor Records), and her latest, Nothin’ But Love (Reservoir).
As an educator Bertha has taught an advanced Jazz Ensemble at the Lucy Moses School, given private piano instruction at Manna House Workshops, and created introductory jazz programs at Washington Irving High School and Women’s Academy of Excellence in the Bronx.
Gene Ghee, tenor & soprano saxophones
New Jersey multi-saxophonist Gene Ghee is a music educator, clinician, jazz historian, and lecturer. He has performed with Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Cassandra Wilson, Little Jimmy Scott, Odean Pope, Barry Harris, Harlem Renaissance Orchestra, Brooklyn Repertory Ensemble, Eddie Palmieri, and Jazz All-Star Newark Arkestra, to name a few. He was the musical contractor for Stevie Wonder’s “Do I Do” recording and has received numerous music teaching awards.
Eddie Allen, trumpet
Milwaukee’s own Eddie “EJ” Allen is a multifaceted trumpeter and flugelhornist. He became associated with Muhal Richard Abrams’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago before heading to New York in 1981, where he worked with Lester Bowie, Art Blakey, Benny Carter,
Bertha Hope, piano & leaderDizzy Gillespie, Houston Person, Chico Freeman, Mongo Santamaría, and Randy Weston. Allen’s playing style has been compared to that of the illustrious Lee Morgan. Allen has been recording for the Enja label since 1994.
Lucianna F. Padmore, drums
Bronx drummer Lucianna F. Padmore is known for her deep grooves and fusion chops. An alumna of LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts and the New School University, she has received awards from Jazz at Lincoln Center and BMI for her improvisational skills. She has performed with Alyson Murray, Bertha Hope Trio and Quintet, the Firey String Sistas, and Deb Knapper’s Knappertime Band, as well as her own quartet. As an educator she is active in drum instruction and jazz outreach in the New York Tri-State area.
Kim Clarke, double bass
Queens, New York, bassist Kim Clarke is best known for her long-standing touring association with Joseph Bowie’s Defunkt band(s) as well as co-creating the “Lady Got Chops” Women’s History Month Music & Arts Festival, a project that promotes women in the arts through either booking or free global promotion.Clarke has toured with Yusef Lateef, National Black Theatre, Joe Henderson, Teri Thornton, and George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, and has taught in workshops on the West Coast and in Europe.
» ladygotchops.com, kimclarke.mysite.com/bio1.html
About the Ellington Jazz Series
For fifty years, the Duke Ellington Fellowship has brought the giants of jazz to Yale’s concert halls and to the city’s public schools. In 1972, Yale’s president Kingman Brewster presented the first Ellington medals to thirty jazz greats, including the Duke himself. That year marked the beginning of a series of extraordinary jazz concerts by Eubie Blake, Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, Odetta, Max Roach, and Charles Mingus, to name just a few.
The Ellington Series continues to present concerts and residencies by jazz legends as well as the new generation of artists.
Thank you for your support!
Become a Yale School of Music patron and support our performance programs. Earn benefits ranging from preferred seating to invitations to special events.
» To join or for more information, visit music.yale.edu/support or contact us at (203) 432–4158.
gustave j. stoeckel circle
$50–$124
David Dubinsky
Stephanie Halene
List as of September 27, 2023
Upcoming Events at YSM
oct 1 Adriana Zabala, mezzo-soprano & J. J. Penna, piano
Faculty Artist Series
3 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Free admission
oct 3 Brentano String Quartet
Oneppo Chamber Music Series
7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Tickets start at $31, Yale faculty/staff start at $23, Students $14
oct 5 David Lang, faculty composer
New Music New Haven
7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Free admission
oct 11
Lunchtime Chamber Music
12:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Free admission
oct 13
Yale Choral Artists with The Percussion Collective
YSM Ensembles
7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Free admission
oct 14
Yale Camerata: Fall Concert Institute of Sacred Music
7:30 p.m. | Woolsey Hall
Free admission
yale school of music box office
Sprague Memorial Hall, 470 College Street, New Haven, CT 06511 203 432–4158 | music-tickets.yale.edu
wshu 91.1 fm is the media sponsor of the Yale School of Music
Connect with us @yalemusic
@yale.music YaleSchoolofMusicOfficial
yalemusic
If you do not intend to save your program, please recycle it in the baskets at the exit doors.