Roy Hargrove quintet
Roy HargroveRoy Hargrove quintet (USA)
Roy Hargrove is one of the leading jazz trumpeters and multiple Grammy award winner.
A fine, straight-ahead player who spent his childhood years in Texas, Hargrove met trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis in 1987, when the latter musician visited Hargrove’s high school in Dallas.
Impressed with the student’s sound, Marsalis allowed Hargrove to sit in with his band and helped him secure additional work with major players, including Bobby Watson, Ricky Ford, Carl Allen, and the group Superblue. Hargrove attended Berklee for one (1988-1989) before decamping to New York City, where his studio career took flight. In 1990, the young Hargrove (he was only 20 at the time) released his first of five recordings for Novus. He often toured with his own group, which for several years including Antonio Hart. In addition to Novus, Hargrove also recorded for Verve and played as a sideman with quite a few notable figures, including Sonny Rollins, James Clay, Frank Morgan, and Jackie McLean, and the ensemble Jazz Futures. His Verve album roster includes 1995’s Family and Parker’s Mood. Habana (a Grammy-winning album of Afro-Cuban music) and Moment to Moment followed at the end of the decade.
Hargrove also went on to contribute to well-received R&B albums by Erykah Badu and D’Angelo, but he also remained indebted to hard bop with such albums as 2008’s Earfood. A year later, Hargrove returned with his 19-member big band on Emergence. He also recorded and performed with Johnny Griffin, Stanley Turrentine, Joe Henderson, Joshua Redman, Jackie McLean, Slide Hampton, Dianne Reeves, Abbey Lincoln, Helen Merrill, Jimmy Smith, Cedar Walton, Oscar Peterson, T.S. Monk, Shirley Horn, Dave Brubeck, Roy Haynes, Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, Kevin Mahogany, Jimmy Cobb, Mike Stern (...) as well as Diana Ross, Vanessa Williams, Boz Scaggs, Gilles Peterson, Linda Ronstadt, Rod Stewart, Gladys Knight...
Members of his quintet are: Justin Robinson - saxophone, Jonathan Batiste - piano, Ameen Saleem – double bass and Montez Coleman – drums.