Trumpeter Bill Hardman (1933–1990) was a long-time front-line Jazz Messenger. This New York session from the summer of 1989 became Hardman’s last recording.
Bill Hardman was one of the leading trumpeters in the hard bop era of 50s playing with Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Charles Mingus among others. Hardman lived in Paris in the last years of his life.
“(Hardman) has cultivated a strikingly personal style, which emerges on this album.” (Birger Jørgensen – Århus Stiftstidende on What’s Up)
“… in 1989 he made an excellent sextet album, What’s Up (SteepleChase), reuniting with Cook and adding Robin Eubanks’ trombone. At about the same time he moved to Paris, where he died Dec. 5th, 1990 of a cerebral stroke at 57.” (from the article Lest We Forget by George Kanzler – NYCJR Dec. 2020)
