‘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”. Much of the programme is arranged for the quintet by German pianist Claus Raible, who has performed with artists such as Art Farmer and Mark Murphy. The challenging compositions deliver a hard swinging set fronted by the band’s Austrian co-leader Herwig Gradischnig, member of the Vienna Art Orchestra, and foremost UK trumpeter Steve Fishwick, whose performing credits include Cedar Walton, Peter Washington, the NDR Big Band, Anita O’Day & Bob Martin. The lineup is completed by Switzerland based double bassist Giorgos Antoniou, who forms part of US pianist Benny Green’s European rhythm section, and London based drummer Matt Home who performs with US guitarist Nate Najar, singer Claire Martin and Tenor saxophonist Brandon Allen and has played with Barry Harris, Grant Stewart and Eric Alexander .
