Roy Hargrove

Hargrove was born in Waco, Texas, to Roy Allan Hargrove and Jacklyn Hargrove.[3][4][5] When he was 9, his family moved to Dallas, Texas.[4] 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.[6] Hargrove’s junior high music teacher, Dean Hill, whom Hargrove called his “musical father,” taught him to improvise and solo.[7] Hargrove credited trumpeter Freddie Hubbard as having the greatest influence on his sound.[8]

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.[9] 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.[10]

In 1990, Hargrove released his debut solo album, Diamond in the Rough, on the Novus/RCA label.[11] 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 1990’s and made him one of jazz’s in-demand players.[12]

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 and Joshua Redman.[13]

Hargrove topped the category “Rising Star–Trumpet” in the DownBeat Critics Poll in 1991, 1992 and 1993.[14] 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.[15] 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.[16]

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.[17]

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.[18] 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.[19][20] The Penguin Jazz Guide identifies Parker’s Mood as one of the “1001 Best Albums” in the history of the genre.[21]

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.[22]

Hargrove won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album in 1998 for Habana with Crisol, an Afro-Cuban band that he founded.[5] 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.[23]

During the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, 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.[24]

In 2000, Hargrove added jazz and funk-influenced horns in support of D'Angelo on his Grammy-winning album Voodoo.[25] 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.[26]

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.[27] After signing with Universal/EmArcy in 2008, Hargrove released the album "Earfood," which Jazziz selected as one of the 5 “essential albums” of that year.[28] He then followed in 2009 with "Emergence," recorded with the Roy Hargrove Big Band; Hargrove received a Grammy nomination for "Best Improvised Jazz Solo" for his performance on the track "Ms. Garvey, Ms. Garvey" on that album.[29] 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.[30]

Hargrove won the trumpet category in the 2019 DownBeat Readers’ Poll.[31]

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.”[32] [33] [34]

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.”[35] [36] [37]

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.[38] Slate selected “In Harmony” as one of the best jazz albums of 2021.[39] The Académie du Jazz awarded "In Harmony" its prize for "Best Reissue or Best Unpublished" album of 2021.[40]

Hargrove was posthumously elected to the DownBeat Magazine "Jazz Hall of Fame" in November 2021.[41]

A quiet and retiring person in life, Hargrove struggled with kidney failure.[42] He died 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.[4] 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.[43]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Roy Hargrove.

• Roy Hargrove discography at Discogs
• Roy Hargrove at Emarcy Records
• Roy Hargrove at Verve Records
• Roy Hargrove at Jazz Trumpet Solos
• Roy Hargrove Quintet: Earfood album review at AllMusic
• Hard Groove album review in Vibe magazine