Colin Asher at n+1:
A bit more than three years into his exile from New York City, St. Elmo Sylvester Hope sat for an interview with Down Beat magazine in Los Angeles. He was a diminutive, softspoken man who looked like what his mother had once dreamed he’d become—a professor. But he was actually a working musician who seemed to be on the cusp of fame after years of obscurity. He’d just contributed to a celebrated album called The Fox, and his most recent release as a bandleader had prompted a reviewer to declare him “a new jazz star.”
People liked Hope. He was charming, generous with his musical insights, funny when the occasion called for it, and endearingly quirky. Sometimes, apropos of nothing, he’d ask friends to solve quadratic equations. But none of those qualities were on display when he spoke to Down Beat. It was the only interview of any length and substance he ever gave, and he used it to tear down California’s music scene.
“The weather is great,” he told Down Beat’s West Coast editor, John Tynan, “and there are a few people I dig.” But his praise ended there.
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