‘Brimming fire and fury’
Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter was known as a musician’s musician
LOS ANGELES Trumpeter Roy Hargrove, a prolific player who provided his jazz sound to records across a vast range of styles and won two Grammys, has died at age 49, his manager said Saturday.
Hargrove died in New York on Nov. 2 of cardiac arrest stemming from a longtime fight with kidney disease, manager Larry Clothier said.
Clothier said Hargrove “was known just as intensely for his brimming fire and fury as he was for his gorgeous, signature balladry. Over and over, his sound attested to and sanctified his deep love for music. His unselfish timbre covered the waterfront of every musical landscape.”
Many of Hargrove’s peers regarded him as the greatest trumpeter of his generation. Through his own bands and as a sideman, Hargrove brewed his jazz with African and Latin sounds, R&B, soul, pop, funk and hip hop.
He led the progressive, genremelding group The RH Factor, played in sessions for Common, Erykah Badu and D’Angelo, and collaborated with jazz giants including Herbie Hancock and Wynton Marsalis.
“He is literally the one-man horn section I hear in my head when I think about music,” Questlove, drummer and leader of the Roots, said on Instagram Saturday. “Love to the immortal timeless genius that will forever be Roy Hargrove y’all.”
A native of Waco, Texas, Hargrove was discovered by his fellow trumpeter Marsalis while Hargrove was playing at a performingarts high school in Dallas.
He went on to the Berklee College of Music in Boston and then transferred to the New School
in New York, where he joined in jam sessions at jazz clubs in the evening. One of those clubs, the Blue Note, said on its Twitter account Saturday that Hargrove was a “young master and friend gone too soon.”
Other tributes flowed from the musical community as word spread of Hargrove’s death.
“I have no words over the loss of my dear brother of 31 years,” bass player Christian McBride said on Twitter.
“We played on a lot of sessions together, travelled a lot of miles together, laughed a lot together, bickered on occasion — and I wouldn’t change our relationship for anything in the world. Bless you, Roy Hargrove.”
Trumpet player and composer Keyon Harrold called Hargrove the “trumpeter jazz king ” on Instagram.
Don Cheadle, who directed and starred in the 2016 movie Miles Ahead about trumpet great Miles Davis, tweeted a picture of himself with Hargrove, saying: “You were a beautiful soul, young lion, you will be terribly missed.”
Hargrove is survived by his wife Aida, daughter Kamala, mother Jacklyn and brother Brian.
Memorial plans are in the works, but no details have been announced yet.