Bertha Hope, Jazz Pianist & Composer

Oct 26, 2014 @ 4:00pm

BMHC honors the Jazz pioneer with a performance Bertha Hope Quintet at the Morris High School Campus.
Bertha Hope is from Los Angeles and attended Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles. It was on the west coast that she met pianist Elmo Hope, who became her husband in 1957. Bertha studied piano at Los Angeles Community College and later received her B.A. degree in Early Childhood Education from Antioch College. She moved with Elmo to the Bronx where she worked at a telephone company during the day while performing music at night. After her husband’s passing in 1967, she continued to share his music and remained an active force in the New York jazz scene. Bertha served as an artist-in-residence under the auspices of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and through this program, she performed in statewide New Jersey music workshops with Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Foster, Nat Adderley, and Philly Joe Jones. She has worked extensively over the years to transcribe many Elmo Hope compositions so that they can be performed and, in addition, pay tribute to one of be-bop’s underrated contributors. Bertha later married Walter Booker, Jr., and they worked to keep the music of Elmo Hope alive through the tribute ensemble called ELMOllenium. She also co-founded and plays with the all-female ensemble Jazzberry Jam and is the leader of The Bertha Hope Trio. She is an active force in improvised music, as well as a composer and arranger with many recordings under her name, including In Search of Hope and Elmo’s Fire (Steeplechase), Between Two Kings (Minor Records), and her latest on the Reservoir label, Nothin’ But Love. Bertha is in residency at Minton’s Supper Club in Harlem, a room closely connected to the art of the jam session in the 1940s, where she holds the Thelonious Monk chair.