Blues, syncopation and the so-called 'Blue Notes' are the key elements of modern jazz. A 'Blue Note' is a tone played or sung with a different tuning, often with a deviation of about a quarter tone, but this deviation varies in different styles and genres. Typically Blue Notes are used instead of the minor third, minor fifth or minor seventh of the tonic

With the appearance of the bebop pioneers Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie on New York's stages, a revolution began against the commercial swing of the 1930s, which until then had shaped the city's music. The two combined jazz with blues elements and blue notes as well as complicated chord sequences, which have remained part of modern jazz to this day. Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Horace Silver are among the masters and giants of modern blue note jazz, also known as hard bop, which dominated New York jazz in the following decades up to the fifties and represents a stark contrast to the cool jazz of the West Coast

However, there are various other artists who have played a formative role in jazz, but who have never experienced the fame to which they should be entitled. This collection contains works by some of these artists, which still have a profound influence on jazz today. A typical example is pianist and composer Elmo Hope, who was a close friend of two masters of modern jazz, Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. Hope only played with the best musicians of his generation, including Clifford Brown, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins

There is much to discover and enjoy on this collection: the masterful trumpeters Thad Jones and Dizzy Reece, saxophonists such as Clifford Jordan, Charlie Rouse, Frank Forster, Hank Mobley, Zoot Sims, Tina Brooks, Ike Quebec, Stanley, Turrentine and Booker Ervin, the pianists Horace Parlan, Duke Jordan, Kenny Drew, Sonny Clark, Duke Pearson, Ray Bryant and Jutta Hipp from Germany, and the singers Sheila Jordan and Dodo Green, all accompanied by the best rhythm sections.