condition (record/cover): NM / VG+ (light ring and edges wear)

Insert included. No obi.

The third man. Elmo Hope grew up in New York playing four-hand piano with Bud Powell, was close to Thelonious Monk all his life, and ended up as the one most people forgot: cabaret card revoked, career derailed, dead at forty-three in 1967. His playing sits between his two friends and belongs to neither, full of odd intervals, unexpected stops and a compositional intelligence that makes even the trio dates feel like scores. The tunes are strange and memorable in the way Monk's are, and the touch is entirely his own.

Japanese pressing. One of the great neglected bop pianists, and the reissues never quite catch up with the demand.