Gone To See T – Bertha Hope

As you hear from our clip, Bertha is a marvelous composer and performer who is able to capture the essence of Monk in her tribute to Thelonious. As happens with many Monk and Monk-like compositions, Bertha has specific notes in mind for the bass. The bass notes are included in the grand staff of our C treble clef lead sheet. Both the AAB melody and AAB solo section are included in each lead sheet.

Living in New York in the 1960s, Bertha and her husband Elmo Hope would often hang out with Thelonious Monk. Elmo was one of Monk's favorite players and composers, one of "The Three Musketeers" along with Monk and Bud Powell. As Bertha describes it, they never knew what the day would bring when they went to see Thelonious. They were "Gone To See T" ("T" was a family nickname for Thelonious).

Check out Bertha, saxophonist Jerry Dodgion and bassist Putter Smith talking about Elmo in Los Angeles on our YouTube channel.

Don Sickler: "My musical involvement with Bertha began when we were going over her husband Elmo Hope's music. We were trying to notate it accurately so others could play it. Fortunately for me and for all other musicians, Bertha has a deep personal knowledge of Elmo's music. I soon realized that Bertha was a tremendous musician and composer in her own right. This is the first of many of her compositions that we'll make available on jazzleadsheets.com."

There are other great titles on Bertha's album.