Informal Jazz

Informal Jazz is an album by jazz musician Elmo Hope, released in 1956 on Prestige Records, catalogue 7043. It has been reissued in 1969 as Two Tenors under the billing of Hope's sidemen for the session, John Coltrane and Hank Mobley.

Informal Jazz
Studio album by
Elmo Hope
ReleasedSeptember or October 1956[1][2]
RecordedRecorded May 7, 1956 at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, NJ
GenreJazz
LabelPrestige Records
ProducerBob Weinstock
Elmo Hope chronology
Hope Meets Foster
(1955)		 Informal Jazz
(1956)		 Trio and Quintet
(1953-57)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[3]

Reception

In his in-depth review for Allmusic, critic Eugene Chadbourne praises each musician's performance individually and by track and comments on the album as a whole: "If this particular session hasn't assumed the legend of a jazz classic, it's because, on the whole, some little spark seems to be missing. If this element could be defined easily, and put into words quickly and efficiently, then record producers and musicians would know exactly how to create the perfect jam session record. The people involved in this record know much more about such a science than the average musician and record producer. These are musicians very far down the road from being average, all of this underscoring the difficulty of creating a spontaneous recording session at which moments of improvisational genius are expected to pop up."[3]

Track listing
  1. "Weeja" (Elmo Hope) — 11:00
  2. "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" (Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke) — 8:31
  3. "On It" (Elmo Hope) — 8:58
  4. "Avalon" (Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva, Vincent Rose) — 9:37

Personnel
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References
  1. Porter, Lewis (ed.) (2013). The John Coltrane Reference. New York/Abingdon: Routledge. p. 425. ISBN 1135112576.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  2. "October Album Releases" (PDF). The Cash Box. The Cash Box Publishing Co. Inc., NY. 6 October 1956. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  3. Chadbourne, Eugene. "Informal Jazz > Review". Allmusic. Retrieved August 19, 2010.
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