Roy Hargrove

Roy Anthony Hargrove (October 16, 1969 – November 2, 2018) was an American jazz musician and composer whose principal instruments were the trumpet and flugelhorn. He achieved worldwide acclaim after winning two Grammy Awards for differing styles of jazz in 1998 and 2002. Hargrove primarily played in the hard bop style for the majority of his albums, but also had a penchant for genre-crossing exploration and collaboration with a variety of hip hop, soul, R&B and alternative rock artists. As Hargrove told one reporter, "I've been around all kinds of musicians, and if a cat can play, a cat can play. If it's gospel, funk, R&B, jazz or hip-hop, if it's something that gets in your ear and it's good, that’s what matters."

Biography

Hargrove was born in Waco, Texas, to Roy Allan Hargrove and Jacklyn Hargrove. When he was 9, his family moved to Dallas, Texas. He took lessons at school initially on cornet before turning to trumpet. He was discovered by Wynton Marsalis when Marsalis visited the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas. One of his most profound early influences was a visit to his junior high school by saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman, who performed as a sideman in Ray Charles's Band. Hargrove’s junior high music teacher, Dean Hill, whom Hargrove called his “musical father,” taught him to improvise and solo. Hargrove credited trumpeter Freddie Hubbard as having the greatest influence on his sound.

Hargrove spent a year (1988–1989) studying at Boston's Berklee College of Music but could more often be found playing in New York City jam sessions. He transferred to the New School in New York. His first studio recording there was with saxophonist Bobby Watson for Watson's album ''No Question About It''. Shortly thereafter, Hargrove recorded with the band Superblue featuring Watson, Mulgrew Miller, Frank Lacy, Don Sickler and Kenny Washington.

In 1990, Hargrove released his debut solo album, ''Diamond in the Rough'', on the Novus/RCA label. This album, and the three succeeding recordings Hargrove made for Novus with his quintet, were among the most commercially successful jazz recordings of the early 1990s and made him one of jazz's in-demand players.

As a side project to his solo and quintet recordings, Hargrove also was the leader of The Jazz Networks, an ensemble of American and Japanese musicians which released 5 albums between 1992 and 1996 and featured other notable jazz artists, including Antonio Hart, Rodney Whitaker and Joshua Redman.

Hargrove topped the category "Rising Star–Trumpet" in the ''DownBeat'' Critics Poll in 1991, 1992 and 1993. During this time in his early career, Hargrove was known as one of the “Young Lions,” a group of rising jazz musicians — including, among others, Marcus Roberts, Mark Whitfield and Christian McBride — who, embracing the foundations of jazz, played principally bebop, hard bop and the Great American Songbook standards. Hargrove, along with other of the "Young Lions," formed an all-star band in 1991 called The Jazz Futures, which released one critically-acclaimed album ''Live in Concert'' before going their separate ways.

In 1993, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra commissioned Hargrove to compose an original jazz suite, and he premiered ''The Love Suite: In Mahogany'' at Lincoln Center with his sextet that year.

In 1994, Hargrove moved to Verve and recorded '' With the Tenors of Our Time'', with Joe Henderson, Stanley Turrentine, Johnny Griffin, Joshua Redman, and Branford Marsalis. He followed with ''Family'' in 1995, and then experimented with a trio format that same year on the album ''Parker's Mood,'' with bassist Christian McBride and pianist Stephen Scott. The Penguin Jazz Guide identifies Parker’s Mood as one of the “1001 Best Albums” in the history of the genre.

In 1995, Hargrove first assembled the Roy Hargrove Big Band to perform at the Panasonic Jazz Festival in New York. The band would go on to perform worldwide and feature big band arrangements of Hargrove's own compositions as well as his favorite songs by respected contemporaries.

Hargrove won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album in 1998 for ''Habana'' with Crisol, an Afro-Cuban band that he founded. He won his second Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album in 2002 for '' Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall'' with co-leaders Herbie Hancock and Michael Brecker. Hargrove was nominated for four other Grammy Awards during his career.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Hargrove was also a member of the Soulquarians, a collective of experimental jazz, hip hop and soul artists that included Questlove, D’Angelo, Common and others.

In 2000, Hargrove added jazz and funk-influenced horns in support of D'Angelo on his Grammy-winning album '' Voodoo''. Hargrove also performed the music of Louis Armstrong in Roz Nixon's musical production "Dedicated To Louis Armstrong" as part of the Verizon Jazz Festival. In 2002, he collaborated with D'Angelo and Macy Gray, the Soultronics, and Nile Rodgers, on two tracks for ''Red Hot & Riot'', a compilation album in tribute to the music of afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. He acted as sideman for jazz pianist Shirley Horn and spoken-word artist Common on the album '' Like Water for Chocolate'' and in 2002 with singer Erykah Badu on '' Worldwide Underground''.

From 2003 to 2006, Hargrove released three albums as the leader of The RH Factor, a group that blended jazz, soul, hip hop and funk idioms. The band's second album, "Strength," was nominated for a Grammy Award for "Best Contemporary Jazz Album."

After signing with Universal/EmArcy in 2008, Hargrove released a quintet album, "Earfood," which Jazziz selected as one of the 5 “essential albums” of that year. He then followed in 2009 with "Emergence," recorded with the Roy Hargrove Big Band; he received a Grammy nomination for "Best Improvised Jazz Solo" for his performance on the track "Ms. Garvey, Ms. Garvey" on that album. From 2009 until his death in 2018, Hargrove appeared as a sideman on recordings by Jimmy Cobb, Roy Haynes, Cyrille Aimée, The 1975, D’Angelo and others.

Hargrove won the trumpet category in the 2019 ''DownBeat'' Readers’ Poll.

In addition to the accolades he garnered on trumpet, music critics also praised Hargrove’s tone on flugelhorn and gifted ways with a ballad. As the Chicago Tribune observed in 2010, "it's Hargrove's ballad playing that tends to win hearts, which is what happened every time he picked up his flugelhorn. We've been hearing Hargrove spin silk on this instrument for a couple of decades now, yet one still marvels at the poetry of his tone, the incredible slowness of his vibrato and the arching lyricism of his phrases."

Over his 30-year career, Hargrove composed and recorded several original compositions, one of which, "Strasbourg-St. Denis", has been characterized as reaching the status of a jazz standard.

In July 2021, nearly three years after his death, Hargrove’s estate released via Resonance Records the double-album ''In Harmony'', a live duet recording made in 2006 and 2007 with pianist Mulgrew Miller. Slate selected ''In Harmony'' as one of the best jazz albums of 2021. The Académie du Jazz awarded ''In Harmony'' its prize for "Best Reissue or Best Unpublished" album of 2021.

Hargrove was posthumously elected to the ''DownBeat Magazine'' "Jazz Hall of Fame" in November 2021.

In June 2022, the documentary ''Hargrove'', filmed during the final year of his life, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. Hargrove's estate issued a statement objecting to the film as not what he had envisioned when agreeing to participate.

Personal life and death

A quiet and retiring person in life, Hargrove struggled with kidney failure. He died at the age of 49 of cardiac arrest brought on by kidney disease on November 2, 2018, while hospitalized in New Jersey. According to his long-time manager, Larry Clothier, Hargrove had been on dialysis for the last 14 years of his life. He is survived by his wife, Aida Brandes-Hargrove, and daughter, Kamala Hargrove, who in 2020 launched the company Roy Hargrove Legacy LLC to preserve and extend his legacy.

Discography

As leader/co-leader

* 1989–90: ''Diamond in the Rough'' ( Novus, 1990)
* 1991?: ''Public Eye'' (Novus, 1991)
* 1991: ''The Tokyo Sessions'' with Antonio Hart (Novus, 1922)
* 1992?: ''The Vibe'' (Novus, 1992)
* 1993?: ''Of Kindred Souls: The Roy Hargrove Quintet Live'' (Novus, 1993)
* 1993–94: ''Approaching Standards'' (BMG Music/Jazz Heritage, 1995) – compilation of tracks from 4 albums
* 1994: The Roy Hargrove Quintet, '' With the Tenors of Our Time'' ( Verve, 1994)
* 1995: ''Family'' (Verve, 1995)
* 1995: ''Parker's Mood'' with Christian McBride, Stephen Scott (Verve, 1995)
* 1997: Roy Hargrove's Crisol, ''Habana'' (Verve, 1997) – Latin Jazz Grammy Winner
* 1999: Roy Hargrove with Strings, ''Moment to Moment'' (Verve, 2000)
* 2001: '' Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall'' with Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker (Verve, 2002) – live. Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group of 2003.
* 2003?: The RH Factor, '' Hard Groove'' (Verve, 2003)
* 2003–04?: The RH Factor, ''Strength'' EP (Verve, 2004) – includes unreleased ''Hard Groove'' (2003) sessions
* 2005?: ''Nothing Serious'' (Verve, 2006) – promo version released in 2005
* 2006?: The RH Factor, ''Distractions'' (Verve, 2006)
* 2007: The Roy Hargrove Quintet, ''Earfood'' (EmArcy, 2008)
* 2008: The Roy Hargrove Big Band, ''Emergence'' (Universal/Emarcy, 2009)

Posthumous release
* ''In Harmony'' with Mulgrew Miller (Resonance, 2021) – recorded in 2006-07

As member

Superblue
* ''Superblue'' (Somethin' Else, 1988)

Manhattan Projects

With Carl Allen, Donald Brown, Ira Coleman and Kenny Garrett
* 1989: ''Dreamboat'' (Timeless, 1990)
* 1989: ''Piccadilly Square'' with Carl Allen (Timeless, 1993)

Jazz Futures

With Antonio Hart, Benny Green, Carl Allen, Christian McBride, Mark Whitfield, Marlon Jordan, Tim Warfield
* ''Live in Concert'' (Novus, 1993) – live recorded in 1991

The Jazz Networks
* 1991: ''Straight to the Standards'' (Novus, 1992)
* 1992: ''Beauty and the Beast'' (Novus, 1993)
* 1993: ''Blues 'n Ballads'' (Novus, 1994)
* 1993–94: The Jazz Networks, ''The Other Day'' (BMG Japan, 1996)
* 1994: The Jazz Networks, ''In The Movies'' (Novus, 1995)

As sideman

With D'Angelo
* 1998–99: '' Voodoo'' ( Virgin, 2000)
* 2002–14: '' Black Messiah'' ( RCA, 2014)

With Erykah Badu
* 1998–2000: '' Mama's Gun'' ( Motown, 2000)
* 2001–03: '' Worldwide Underground'' (Motown, 2003)

With Jimmy Cobb
* 2006: ''Cobb's Corner'' (Chesky, 2007)
* 2008: ''Jazz in the Key of Blue'' (Chesky, 2009)
* 2016: ''Remembering U'' (Jimmy Cobb World, 2019) – posthumous release

With Johnny Griffin
* 1994?: ''Chicago-New york-Paris'' (Verve, 1994)
* 2008: ''Live at Ronnie Scott's'' (In+Out, 2008) – live

With Roy Haynes
* '' Birds of a Feather: A Tribute to Charlie Parker'' ( Dreyfus Jazz, 2001)
* ''Roy-Alty'' (Dreyfus Jazz, 2011)

With Shirley Horn
* 1995: ''The Main Ingredient'' (Verve, 1996)
* 1997: '' I Remember Miles'' (Verve, 1998)
* 2003: '' May the Music Never End'' (Verve, 2003)

With Jimmy Smith
* '' Damn!'' (Verve, 1995)
* '' Angel Eyes: Ballads & Slow Jams'' (Verve, 1996)

With The 1975
* 2015: ''I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It'' ( Dirty Hit, 2016)
* 2017-18: ''A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships'' (Dirty Hit, 2018)
* 2018-20: '' Notes on a Conditional Form'' (Dirty Hit, 2020) – posthumous release

With others
* 1988: Bobby Watson & Horizon, ''No question about it'' ( Blue Note, 1988)
* 1989: Ricky Ford, ''Hard Groovin', 1989)
* 1990: Ralph Moore, '' Furthermore'' (Landmark, 1990)
* 1990: Frank Morgan, '' A Lovesome Thing'' (Antilles, 1991)
* 1991?: Antonio Hart, ''For the First Time'' (Novus, 1991)
* 1991?: Charles Fambrough, ''The Proper Angle'' (CTI, 1991)
* 1991: Sonny Rollins, '' Here's to the People'' (Milestone, 1991) – 2 tracks "I Wish I Knew" and "Young Roy"
* 1992?: Jackie McLean, ''Rhythm of the Earth'' (Birdology, 1992)
* 1992?: V.A., ''New York Stories'' (Blue Note, 1992)
* 1992: Diana Ross, '' Stolen Moments: The Lady Sings... Jazz and Blues'' (Motown, 1993) – live
* 1993: Bob Thiele Collective, ''Lion Hearted'' (Red Baron, 1993)
* 1993: Steve Coleman, ''The Tao of Mad Phat

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