Jazz Legend Roy Hargrove Has a Posthumous Release

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   Dallas-raised Roy Hargrove was a compulsive collaborator. His group Crisol will be the focus of a forthcoming posthumous release. Hank O'Neal

Press play on “Priorities” and for a propulsive, pleasurable five minutes and 20 seconds, Roy Hargrove’s wonderfully limber, expressive trumpet playing comes alive once more.

The vibrant, kinetic track is from the forthcoming album Grande-Terre, the third archival release featuring the Waco-born and Dallas-raised musician since his untimely death at the age of 49 in late 2018.

(The first posthumous release was 2021’s In Harmony, a record featuring Hargrove’s 2006 and 2007 collaborations with pianist Mulgrew Miller, and the second was last year’s The Love Suite: In Mahogany, which documented a 1993 Hargrove performance at Jazz at Lincoln Center.)

Grande-Terre is credited to Roy Hargrove’s Crisol, a Latin-leaning collective which, on this record, included Hargrove, trombonist Frank Lacy; percussionists Miguel “Anga” Diaz and Jose Luis “Changuito” Quintana; alto saxophonist Sherman Irby; tenor saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart; pianists Gabriel Hernandez and Larry Willis; guitarist Ed Cherry; bassist Gerald Cannon; drummer and vocalist Julio Barreto and drummer Willie Jones.

Thirty years after it was recorded, Grande-Terre will be released by Verve Records on Oct. 18 (just two days after what would’ve been Hargrove’s 55th birthday), on vinyl LP, CD and digital music services.
The 10-track collection is the second full-length record by Roy Hargrove’s Crisol, but the bar is high. The group released only one other LP, Habana, during Hargrove’s lifetime, but that effort won Hargrove and the players a 1998 Grammy for best Latin jazz performance.

Grande-Terre was cut in the studio just days after that victory but has remained in Verve Records’ vault for three decades.

Of note: The group heard on Habana differs slightly from Grande-Terre. Hargrove, Lacy, Diaz and Quintana appear on both projects, but Habana also includes soprano and tenor saxophonist David Sanchez; alto and soprano saxophonist Gary Bartz; bassist John Benitez; drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez; guitarist Russell Malone and pianist Jesus “Chucho” Valdes.

Hargrove’s connection to Latin music broadly, and Cuban music and its proponents specifically, was bolstered when Valdes invited Hargrove to visit Cuba in 1996, during the country’s 16th annual jazz festival.
A New York Times interview from the period captures Hargrove’s near-instantaneous intoxication with what he saw and heard and felt, describing him “[jamming] in the bar of the Hotel Riviera until 4 a.m., greeting a stream of talented young Cuban musicians and playing with some of the great Cuban percussionists.”

“I knew there were going to be good musicians here,” Hargrove told The Times’s Peter Watrous in 1996, “but I had no idea they were going to be as good as they are. I’m lucky, because when I was a student, I spent time playing in merengue bands, which prepared me for the rhythmic sophistication. The average American jazz musician can easily get lost in it all.

“The rhythms here are so deep it’s already left an impression on me; it has definitely changed the way I play.”

It was not long after the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alum returned to the U.S. that Hargrove assembled Crisol — four Americans, two Cubans and two Puerto Ricans — and captured a 70-minute live performance at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Italy, which was eventually released as Habana in 1997.
Crisol was far from a one-off for Hargrove, who was a chronic collaborator. Throughout his life and career, the Texan assembled various permutations of artists to record and tour, including the Roy Hargrove Quintet, the Roy Hargrove Big Band, the Jazz Networks, the Jazz Futures and the RH Factor.

He also contributed extensively to more mainstream artists such as D’Angelo, Erykah Badu and Common, to name just a few, while also collaborating with jazz stars Christian McBride, Herbie Hancock and Branford Marsalis.

Indeed, since Hargrove’s 2018 death, that legacy of vibrant artistry has been kept alive thanks to the determined, passionate efforts of his widow, Aida Brandes-Hargrove, and his daughter, Kamala, who created the company Roy Hargrove Legacy LLC to help manage his estate and oversee releases such as Grande-Terre.

Through their attention to detail and focus on ensuring Hargrove’s prodigious output remains visible and in circulation — Brandes-Hargrove and Kamala had a hand in ensuring 2004’s Hard Groove, by The RH Factor, was pressed on vinyl for its 20th anniversary — they are preserving the cultural contributions of one of the greatest jazz artists to ever emerge from Dallas, as countless critics have noted beyond the city’s borders.
“Roy Hargrove should be remembered in part as a person who, as much as anyone, shaped the intersection of jazz, hip-hop, and R&B, which is today occupied by myriad hip-hop and R&B artists,” wrote Pitchfork’s Danny Schwartz in the days immediately after Hargrove’s death. “This intersection is a bustling marketplace of ideas, and Hargrove helped create it. The musical world is freer today because of him.”

from  www.dallasobserver.com 

Edited by snobb - 08 Oct 2024 at 9:33am

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snobb Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Visit Members Homepage Add to Buddy List Forum Admin Group Site Admin Joined: 22 Dec 2010 Location: Vilnius Status: Online Points: 29717	Post Options Post Reply Quote snobb Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Jazz Legend Roy Hargrove Has a Posthumous Release Posted: 08 Oct 2024 at 9:32am
	Dallas-raised Roy Hargrove was a compulsive collaborator. His group Crisol will be the focus of a forthcoming posthumous release. Hank O'Neal Press play on “Priorities” and for a propulsive, pleasurable five minutes and 20 seconds, Roy Hargrove’s wonderfully limber, expressive trumpet playing comes alive once more. The vibrant, kinetic track is from the forthcoming album Grande-Terre, the third archival release featuring the Waco-born and Dallas-raised musician since his untimely death at the age of 49 in late 2018. (The first posthumous release was 2021’s In Harmony, a record featuring Hargrove’s 2006 and 2007 collaborations with pianist Mulgrew Miller, and the second was last year’s The Love Suite: In Mahogany, which documented a 1993 Hargrove performance at Jazz at Lincoln Center.) Grande-Terre is credited to Roy Hargrove’s Crisol, a Latin-leaning collective which, on this record, included Hargrove, trombonist Frank Lacy; percussionists Miguel “Anga” Diaz and Jose Luis “Changuito” Quintana; alto saxophonist Sherman Irby; tenor saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart; pianists Gabriel Hernandez and Larry Willis; guitarist Ed Cherry; bassist Gerald Cannon; drummer and vocalist Julio Barreto and drummer Willie Jones. Thirty years after it was recorded, Grande-Terre will be released by Verve Records on Oct. 18 (just two days after what would’ve been Hargrove’s 55th birthday), on vinyl LP, CD and digital music services. The 10-track collection is the second full-length record by Roy Hargrove’s Crisol, but the bar is high. The group released only one other LP, Habana, during Hargrove’s lifetime, but that effort won Hargrove and the players a 1998 Grammy for best Latin jazz performance. Grande-Terre was cut in the studio just days after that victory but has remained in Verve Records’ vault for three decades. Of note: The group heard on Habana differs slightly from Grande-Terre. Hargrove, Lacy, Diaz and Quintana appear on both projects, but Habana also includes soprano and tenor saxophonist David Sanchez; alto and soprano saxophonist Gary Bartz; bassist John Benitez; drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez; guitarist Russell Malone and pianist Jesus “Chucho” Valdes. Hargrove’s connection to Latin music broadly, and Cuban music and its proponents specifically, was bolstered when Valdes invited Hargrove to visit Cuba in 1996, during the country’s 16th annual jazz festival. A New York Times interview from the period captures Hargrove’s near-instantaneous intoxication with what he saw and heard and felt, describing him “[jamming] in the bar of the Hotel Riviera until 4 a.m., greeting a stream of talented young Cuban musicians and playing with some of the great Cuban percussionists.” “I knew there were going to be good musicians here,” Hargrove told The Times’s Peter Watrous in 1996, “but I had no idea they were going to be as good as they are. I’m lucky, because when I was a student, I spent time playing in merengue bands, which prepared me for the rhythmic sophistication. The average American jazz musician can easily get lost in it all. “The rhythms here are so deep it’s already left an impression on me; it has definitely changed the way I play.” It was not long after the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alum returned to the U.S. that Hargrove assembled Crisol — four Americans, two Cubans and two Puerto Ricans — and captured a 70-minute live performance at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Italy, which was eventually released as Habana in 1997. Crisol was far from a one-off for Hargrove, who was a chronic collaborator. Throughout his life and career, the Texan assembled various permutations of artists to record and tour, including the Roy Hargrove Quintet, the Roy Hargrove Big Band, the Jazz Networks, the Jazz Futures and the RH Factor. He also contributed extensively to more mainstream artists such as D’Angelo, Erykah Badu and Common, to name just a few, while also collaborating with jazz stars Christian McBride, Herbie Hancock and Branford Marsalis. Indeed, since Hargrove’s 2018 death, that legacy of vibrant artistry has been kept alive thanks to the determined, passionate efforts of his widow, Aida Brandes-Hargrove, and his daughter, Kamala, who created the company Roy Hargrove Legacy LLC to help manage his estate and oversee releases such as Grande-Terre. Through their attention to detail and focus on ensuring Hargrove’s prodigious output remains visible and in circulation — Brandes-Hargrove and Kamala had a hand in ensuring 2004’s Hard Groove, by The RH Factor, was pressed on vinyl for its 20th anniversary — they are preserving the cultural contributions of one of the greatest jazz artists to ever emerge from Dallas, as countless critics have noted beyond the city’s borders. “Roy Hargrove should be remembered in part as a person who, as much as anyone, shaped the intersection of jazz, hip-hop, and R&B, which is today occupied by myriad hip-hop and R&B artists,” wrote Pitchfork’s Danny Schwartz in the days immediately after Hargrove’s death. “This intersection is a bustling marketplace of ideas, and Hargrove helped create it. The musical world is freer today because of him.” from www.dallasobserver.com Edited by snobb - 08 Oct 2024 at 9:33am