In the liner notes of his new CD Emergence; writer Dale Fitzgerald Director of The Jazz Gallery in New York wrote than in a conversation he had with Roy Hargrove earlier in his career, he stated that one day he would love to lead a big band.
The Road To The Big Band
Well it’s been many years since that conversation and Roy had been busy. He has led quartets and quintets; Recorded music with legendary players like Johnny Griffin, Stanley Turrentine Joe Henderson and created an Afro Cuban band Crisol, complete with American and Cuban players to record the Grammy Award winning CD Habana.
His musical curiosity and his youth led him to incorporate some of the funk and Hip Hop grooves, one can hear on the radio these days into two of his most successful albums: RH Factor and Distractions.
The Romanticism Of The Big Sound
But despite all the success he has had with the smaller groups. He has always felt the need to relive the glory days of the big band.
The days when Basie led his band fronted by the great Jimmy Rushing, and Lester Young, when Ellington blazed triumphantly into Newport with his band and great soloist like Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges Cat Anderson and Paul Gonsalves waiting to give life to his new compositions.
The romanticism of the big band has always captivated the minds of jazz lovers, the sweeping lush sounds of a bed of brass and reeds supporting the brave soloists as they take flight into a higher musical atmosphere.
Roy’s wanting to record a big band should come as a surprise to no one he was after all discovered while playing in the Dallas Arts Magnet High School big band and every move in his career has led to this.
In The Footsteps Of Jazz Giants
His desire for this lush big band sound could be seen as following in the footsteps of many of his jazz elders. Who can forget that many consider that Miles Davis did some of his best work with an orchestra conducted by Gil Evans. Charlie Parker With Strings is a much admired album so too is Clifford Brown with Strings and the great Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson, did on occasion sit in with a big band.
Emergence released on the Groovin’ High/Emarcy label, finds Roy in the company of nineteen musicians and singer Roberta Gambarini, who is very comfortable in front of a big band.
The disc opens up with a compositions of Hargrove called Velera which kick off with the sounds of subdued horns, subtle, moving, building to crescendos that make way for another built up that eventually lays back and let’s Roy do his thing on Flugelhorn
Ms Garvey, Ms Garvey written and arranged by Baritone Saxman Jason Marshall is a spirited happy romp that jumps at you from the get go, filled with swing and a healthy dose of the blues. Gene Harris would be very proud of this piece.
He reminds us that he is down with the Cuban sounds as the band jams smartly on a Mambo For Roy a composition of the great Cuban pianist ChuCho Valdes.
His take on the classic My Funny Valentine is fresh and commanding. It stands out boldly amongst the many other versions one might have already heard.
Roy has done a lot of singing in live shows and on Emergence he lends his vocals to the swinging, toe tapping’ arrangement of September in the Rain. Roberta Gambarini joins in the fun with her vocals on Everytime We Say Goodbye and La Puerta.
Roy Hargrove’s Emergence is another winner in the ever growing discography of this fine trumpeter. The question now is where does he go next?
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