Jazz Throwback

Oh, so handsome. Photography by FireFish

In the meatime, as we wait for Mr. Hargrove's new record, due out in February, I offer you a throwback review of Hard Groove. Peace.

Roy Hargrove Presents The RH Factor: Hard Groove

By: Laylah Amatullah Barrayn
Vibe Online
July 25, 2003

There’s something steely about Hard Groove. It’s not the usual high brow, hard-bop offering. No, this is “the funk” as filtered through Roy Anthony Hargrove’s jazz mind. Backtrack to when Miles Davis dropped the very funky and electronic In A Silent Way. It was a wrap for his acoustic sound and style. Jazz fundamentalists be forewarned, this could be déja vu looming.

Recorded at Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios in New York, Hard Groove was mixed down in analog to simulate the live show ambiance of a juke joint, tavern, or even a South African shebeen-right in your home. The album opens up with "Hardgroove," a bass-driven, midtempo song that actually lays down the mood trajectory of the album's overall soundscape, and that is definitely "the funk."

To paraphrase jazz master Duke Ellington, the jazz musician is the freest person in the world, with freedom being the very essence of jazz. Roy Hargrove exemplifies that free spirit to the fullest. Although this trumpet and flugelhorn player is a former protege of Wynton Marsalis, and by extension an aesthetic grandson of Ralph Ellison, chronologically Hargrove is one of us - a straight-up hip hop head. The 33-year-old Dallas native, rocking locks and dirty denims has created a hub for jazz, R&B, hip hop, and funk on Hard Groove, representing an expanded musical sensibility of a much-underestimated generation.

Head here to finish reading this review.