As part of the 30th anniversary edition of the Macao International Music Festival, celebrated jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove will be on stage at Mount Fortress on October 21. The winner of two Grammy awards will be paying tribute to a very special jazz icon, Miles Davis, during his Macau show. CLOSER gained an exclusive interview with Hargrove while on tour in the lead up to his Macau debut
As one of the world’s most celebrated and respected contemporary jazz trumpeters, Roy Hargrove’s performance at the Mount Fortress is certain to be one of the great highlights on the calendar of this year’s Macao International Music Festival.
“I always look forward to experiencing new cultures and places. I’ve never been to Macau and I’m looking forward to sharing my music with the people there,” Hargrove told Macau CLOSER in an exclusive interview.
A trumpeter, composer, and an arranger, Hargrove has been a mainstay of the contemporary music scene in a variety of formats. Since his own emergence in the late ’80s, he has proved to be an adventurous and wide-ranging artist, proudly immersed in the jazz tradition and yet continually striking out for new terrain.
Hargrove has never shied away from collaborating outside genre boundaries, contributing to a wide array of groundbreaking R&B and rock albums, including Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun and Worldwide Underground (Badu was a high school classmate), John Mayer’s Continuum, and D’Angelo’s Voodoo and Black Messiah, which just took home best R&B album honors at this year’s Grammy Awards.
“I never think in terms of ‘genre’. Music to me is a vast spectrum which should be explored in order to be a complete musician,” he explains. “Actually, I played some piano and when I was younger, and I was a member of a drum corps where I played snare and bass drum. I even played bass in a cover band. I’ve always tried many things musically and never limited myself to one area.”
But what truly sets Hargrove apart are his ties to jazz greats of the past.
Widely considered a trumpet genius, the young Hargrove was part of the jazz revival in the United States, catching the attention of jazz legend Wynton Marsalis while still in high school in Texas. 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 and the group Superblue.
In 1990, after two years at Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music, Hargrove moved to New York City, formed his first quintet, and released his debut album, Diamond in the Rough. This album, and the three following recordings Hargrove made for the Novus label, were among the most commercially successful jazz recordings of the early 1990s, and made the young trumpeter one of the music’s hottest properties. Unimpressed by stardom, Hargrove continued to develop his craft by performing with jazz giants such as saxophonist Sonny Rollins and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.
Hargrove became a charter member of a precocious group of jazz prodigies known as “The Young Lions.” Along with fellow trumpeters Nicholas Peyton and Marlon Jordan, saxophonists Antonio Hart and Joshua Redman, bassist Christian McBride, and a host of other young players, Hargrove ignited a global resurgence in the popularity of jazz. Intelligent, well-educated, and articulate, with a strong sense of jazz’s rich history, these musicians were signed by major recording labels and supported by the kind of publicity formerly reserved for pop stars.
“I enjoy both playing and writing,” Hargrove tells CLOSER. “Playing, because of the interaction with people. Writing because there is nothing like hearing something that you created from within.”
As Hargrove’s talents as a soloist matured, so did his strength as a bandleader. During the early 1990s he experimented with a variety of personnel, trying to build a tightly focused ensemble. In 1992, he laid the foundation for future groups by hiring bassist Rodney Whitaker and drummer Gregory Hutchinson, who together comprised one of the finest rhythm units in modern jazz. By the release of 1993’s Of Kindred Souls, Hargrove’s hard work had paid off.
As his success continued, Hargrove dedicated himself to spreading jazz’s affirmative message to a new generation of musicians, giving workshops for jazz musicians in high schools throughout the United States.
“There is a positive aspect to playing music, and it makes a difference when you can reach young people around the country and tell them about jazz,” he told Down Beat columnist June Lehman. “You may inspire a young person to do great things just by having music in their life.”
As one of the most influential artists leading to the resurgence of acoustic jazz music, Hargrove’s clean, soulful, stylings punctuated with dazzling solo flourishes are the result of his unique interpretation of many forms of music encountered throughout his life.
“Jazz is one of the most complex but hardest to get a hold of,” the musician said in an interview with The Burton Wire in 2014. “If you’re gonna be a musician, you’ve got to be open. Don’t leave anything out. If you take care of the music, it will take care of you.”
Hargrove has won Grammy Awards for two vastly different projects. In 1998, his Cuban-based band Crisol won the Best Latin Jazz Performance Grammy for the album Habana. And in 2002, Hargrove, Herbie Hancock and Michael Brecker won Best Instrumental Jazz Album, Individual or Group, for their three-way collaboration Directions in Music.
Hargrove’s legend is attributed to his passion and dedication to jazz. His music is famous not only for its originality and dramatic tension, but also wild yet precise improvisation featuring a variety of tunes that fully manifest his soul of jazz.
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the birth of jazz giant Miles Davis. On stage in Macau, Hargrove will pay tribute to him by playing a number of Davis’ masterpieces.
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The 30th Macao International Music Festival will present a tremendous array of talented performances from around the world. Here are just a few highlights of what we can expect