| Informal Jazz | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Elmo Hope |
| Cover: | Informal Jazz.jpeg |
| Released: | September or October 1956 |
| Recorded: | May 7, 1956 |
| Studio: | Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, NJ |
| Genre: | Jazz |
| Label: | Prestige Records |
| Producer: | Bob Weinstock |
| Prev Title: | Hope Meets Foster |
| Prev Year: | 1955 |
| Next Title: | Trio and Quintet |
| Next Year: | 1953-57 |
Informal Jazz is an album by jazz musician Elmo Hope, released in September or October 1956 on Prestige Records.[1] [2] It was reissued in 1969 under the title Two Tenors, and under the billing of Hope's sidemen for the session, John Coltrane and Hank Mobley.
In his review for AllMusic, critic Eugene Chadbourne praises each musician's performance individually and by track and comments on the album as a whole: "If this particular session hasn't assumed the legend of a jazz classic, it's because, on the whole, some little spark seems to be missing. If this element could be defined easily, and put into words quickly and efficiently, then record producers and musicians would know exactly how to create the perfect jam session record. The people involved in this record know much more about such a science than the average musician and record producer. These are musicians very far down the road from being average, all of this underscoring the difficulty of creating a spontaneous recording session at which moments of improvisational genius are expected to pop up."