Hard Bop: the Dominant, Not Sole, Focus Here.

I care a great deal about what came before it, and what came out of it, most of all the remarkable musicians who faced challenges (pardon the euphemism) posed by the British invasion of 1964. "Hard bop" is an abstraction, but if I manage to lead my visitor away from words about it and to the music itself, which my words might as easily dilute as illuminate, he or she will be able to put meat on the literary bones I offer.