Eighty-Eight
SSC1769 2026-11-27
Track List
Low Tide - 4:48
One Second Please - 5:47
De La Senidras - 3:56
Tenor Madness - 4:28
Please Send Me Someone to Love - 6:13
Musicians
Bertha Hope - piano
Ben Wolstein - bass
Eric Binder - drums
Times change yet some things remain the same. As she approaches her ninetieth birthday, Bertha Hope maintains an active musical life, playing regularly throughout the New York City area. The legendary pianist continues to impress audiences and pass down her decades’ worth of knowledge to collaborators searching for the roots of jazz music. On her new album, Eighty-Eight, Hope finds inspiration and verve from two young musical partners, bassist Ben Wolstein and drummer Eric Binder.
Born in Los Angeles in 1936, Hope was introduced to the jazz world when she moved to New York City with her first husband, pianist Elmo Hope. Most famously, she recorded a duo piano album with her husband, entitled Hope-Full, for Riverside Records in 1961. Hope continued her path in the music when her husband passed away in 1967. She remarried to bassist Walter Booker in the early 1980s and had a recording resurgence in the 1990s, releasing a number of well received albums on SteepleChase and Minor Music Records.
Hope remained busy performing in the 2000s, including a weekly stint at Alvin and Friends Restaurant in New Rochelle, New York. It is there that she met bassist and musical polymath Ben Wolstein, who began to accompany her regularly. Wolstein invited drummer Eric Binder to sit in one night, inadvertently starting what would become the Bertha Hope Trio.
The trio convened in May 2025 at Brooklyn’s Acoustic Recording to capture a mini-album composed of five pieces that they performed regularly, including a Hope original along with pieces by Elmo Hope, Sonny Rollins, and Percy Mayfield. The brief recording hits all the way through, reminiscent of the 10-inch vinyl discs that Bertha Hope would have grown up absorbing and loving.
The program begins with two pieces by Elmo Hope, “Low Tide” and “One Second, Please.” The former highlights Hope’s deft piano touch over a heavily swinging beat while the latter digs into a darker theme and harmony as the trio navigates the tune’s intricate structure. Bertha Hope’s “De Las Senidras” slows the pace for a moment as the pianist introduces the theme before Wolstein and Binder add their propulsive energy.
It was while Elmo Hope was touring with the late, great saxophonist Sonny Rollins that he met Bertha Hope. It is only fitting that the trio pay the legend tribute with his piece, “Tenor Madness,” done here in a playful, mid-tempo romp. The program concludes with the great rhythm and blues singer-songwriter Percy Mayfield’s “Send Me Someone To Love,” which invites a soulful and affecting ballad rendition.
Eighty-Eight is a welcome return and a reminder of Bertha Hope’s brilliance at the keyboard. Her performance is only heightened by the younger musicians that find influence in her music and guidance in her mentorship, like her trio mates, Ben Wolstein and Eric Binder.