Hargrove, Roy (Anthony Jr.)

Hargrove, Roy (Anthony Jr.), jazz-revival trumpeter; b. Waco, Tex., Oct 16, 1969. He began on clarinet, then started studying cornet at age nine. He became more excited at 13 upon witnessing Fathead Newman perform at his junior high school. While in high school he played a duet with Larry Willis at a local club. He won an IAJE Young Talent Award in 1986 in Atlanta along with Stephen Scott. His first big break was sitting in with Wynton Marsalis at a Fort Worth club. A few months later he was touring Europe with Frank Morgan in a band that included Ronnie Mathews and Walter Booker. He earned a scholarship to Berklee Coll. in the fall of 1987. John Hicks began championing Hargrove, inviting him to sit in at his N.Y. club dates in 1988. Scott and Christian McBride were members of Hargrove’s first organized quintet in 1990. Hargrove studied under Jimmy Cobb in 1990 after transferring from Berklee to the New School for Social Research (N.Y). In the summer of 1991, Hargove and McBride were members of the Jazz Futures band. The Love Suite: In Mahogany, a composition in five-movements, was commissioned in 1993 by the jazz department at Lincoln Center; Hargrove played the solo at the work’s premiere that September. From the mid-1990s, he led his own small groups and, on occasion, a big band. After performing at the Havana, Cuba, jazz festival in 1996, he formed a Cuban-influenced quintet called Crisol along with pianist Chucho Valdes and Cuban percussionists; the group toured and recorded through 1997.

Discography

Diamond in the Rough (1990); Public Eye (1990); Tokyo Sessions (1991); Vibe (1992); Of Kindred Souls (1993); With the Tenors of Our Time (1994); Approaching Standards (1994); Parker’s Mood (1995); Family (1995; w. W. Marsalis).

—Lewis Porter