[2]: 24  Prominent hard bop musicians included Horace Silver, Clifford Brown, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino and others.

'"[1] The term "soul" suggests the church, and traditional gospel music elements such as "amen chords" (the plagal cadence) and triadic harmonies that seemed to suddenly appear in jazz during the era.

[6] As Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill explain, "the hard bop school...saw the new instrumentation and compositional devices used by cool musicians as gimmicks rather than valid developments of the jazz tradition.

[3] According to Nat Hentoff in his 1957 liner notes for the Art Blakey Columbia LP entitled Hard Bop, the phrase was originated by music critic and pianist John Mehegan, jazz reviewer of the New York Herald Tribune at that time.

"[12] The broadening influence of hard bop coincided with a generation of jazz pianists who rose to prominence in the late 1950s – among them Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Drew, and Wynton Kelly – who took "altered" approaches to bebop.

"[5] A critical album that cemented hard bop's mainstream presence in jazz was A Blowin' Session (1957), including saxophonists Johnny Griffin, John Coltrane, and Hank Mobley; trumpeter Lee Morgan; pianist Wynton Kelly; bassist Paul Chambers; and Art Blakey.

[17] Meanwhile, in the late 1950s to early 1960s John Coltrane was a prominent saxophonist within the hard bop genre, with albums such as Blue Train and Giant Steps exemplifying his ability to play within this style.

"[19] Blue Train was described by Richard Havers as "Coltrane's Hard-Bop Masterpiece," although an edit made to one of the album's records caused controversy following disapproval from sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder.

[21] Coltrane was a longtime member of Miles Davis' band, which bridged the gap between hard bop and modal jazz with albums such as Milestones and Kind of Blue.

These albums represented a transition toward more experimental jazz, but Davis maintained core ideas of hard bop, such as the "call-and-response theme" found on one of Kind of Blue's best-known tracks, "So What.

David Rosenthal considers six albums among the high points of the hard bop era: Ugetsu, Kind of Blue, Saxophone Colossus, Let Freedom Ring, Mingus Ah Um, and Brilliant Corners, referring to these as being some of the genre's "masterpieces.

For example, Donald Byrd's shift toward commercial fusion and smooth jazz recordings of the early 1970s, while celebrated within some circles, was considered a "betrayal" by fans of hard bop.

[26] However, in 1985, the filmed concert One Night with Blue Note brought together thirty predominantly hard bop musicians including Art Blakey, Ron Carter, Johnny Griffin, and Freddie Hubbard.

"[5]Joe Henderson, for instance, was described by Yanow as a "national celebrity and a constant poll winner" in jazz circles after signing for Verve in the 1990s, largely due to changes in marketing.

[23] Rosenthal observed that "[t]he years 1955 to 1965 represent the last period in which jazz effortlessly attracted the hippiest young black musicians, the most musically advanced, those with the most solid technical skills and the strongest sense of themselves, not only as entertainers but as artists."