You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Tribute to Roy Hargrove - #52

Episode Date: November 6, 2018

Watch Peter pay tribute to Roy Hargrove with a performance of "Mental Phrasing" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JSLqguDif4 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. Yeah, and no jazz advice today. Today we wanted to talk specifically about a tragic loss that was suffered by the entire jazz community, the global jazz community. And that was the passing of Roy Harbour on Saturday. Peter, I know he was a friend of yours and you played with him for a long time and just wondering, you know, how you're feeling about everything.

Well, you know, it's, you know, Roy was such a force in this music. I always knew that from when I first met him. When we were in high school, you know, back in Texas in 1985, I believe it was. He's been a force of the music since then. Yeah. And it's kind of amazing to say that because, you know, he was a kid. I was a kid then. But he was truly something special.

And I had met, you know, a number of other. special musicians, but there was truly something special about him. And that kind of continued from the whole time that I knew him. He was, he's always been a leader of this music with his trumpet, with his compositions, with how he carried himself within the music. And I think over these past few days, what we've seen this outpouring of, you know, love and appreciation for him, both from other musicians that were fortunate enough to be around him and really just the jazz community in general and the listeners, it's all kind of the same feeling. And I think and reflect on, you know, just how fortunate I was to kind of be around his glow just a little bit. But I think for all of us,

it's it's the same. If you play with him, if you listen to him, I mean, he was truth coming out of his trumpet, like his, who Roy was, that came through in his music and how he carried himself within this music. And he really was and will continue to be, you know, a beacon for truth in this music. I'm not overstating. I'm kind of understating it. I feel like. Yeah, for sure. Because, I mean, he is truly somebody that I think we should all aspire to be in terms of when we talk about upholding the tradition of jazz. And I'm not talking about a certain sound or anything. I'm talking about where this music is presented is about the music. And people come to hear it. And they are wowed by the artistry and the dedication of the musician. And Roy set that standard. You know,

and it's like, wow, he's gone now. But his music, his ideals, and what he stood for is not gone. And so it's been, I don't know, an interesting few days, I think for all of us in that, you know, I've just been listening to his music nonstop and sort of reflecting on him and thinking about all the things that I learned from him and all the joy that he brought. And so, like, I'm just totally inspired now to follow in his footsteps as far as his dedication. to music, you know? And I think what a, what an unfortunate thing that he passed, you know, way too early.

Yeah. At 49. But I'm already seeing that like what he's known for universally, like everybody that either heard him, saw him or knew him is for his incredible musicianship. And like as a player, he was not about the money, the fame. I mean, you know, people saw him and he dressed really well. And that was something that he was into. But that really wasn't, it was all about music.

Every time I saw him, like, he's sitting in at a jam session, he's doing a gig on a recording, talking about music. It was like, I mean, he truly, you know, lived to the ideals that he believed in, I think, and lived up to the hype. You know, and that's something that's very rare. I don't know that it's ever existed in our music. Like, I mean, I think that, you know, as we go along, we're going to start to really reflect on this. But I don't know if there's ever been anybody within jazz music that has been. been, that it's had the kind of singular focus and dedication to the music on as high of a level as he has. Yeah, I agree. Do you remember those specific circumstances when you guys met

when you were in high school? You were in Texas. What was it for? Well, it was for the IAJE convention. We went down there with my high school band. And so that was like what became the, what now is the Jen, the Jen conference, I think. But, you know, different high school bands would be invited to play many and college bands. And I, and we went, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, shirt was 1985 because I think I was a freshman. I think Roy was a sophomore that year. And I had heard about him. I mean, he was like, you know, one of a number of musicians that I'd heard about. I believe through Winton Marcellus, either talking about him because I had met Winton by that point or just him talking about him in an interview. I mean, he was like a name, like as an up-and-coming

player. And so I went over, it was like in a hotel like the Marriott Airport Hotel in Texas. And I looked on the schedule and saw that he went to Texas. He's from Dallas. I think it was Dallas Arts Magnet High School. And I went over and saw their band and heard him play. And I was like, wow. And I went over and introduced myself. And he was kind of like, yeah, yeah, I know about you.

You play piano, right? And I was like, whoa, you know. And that was kind of it, you know. And then I saw him years later, not that many years later in New York. And then, like, all of our interactions were always like about music, you know. And that's just really the way that he was. When he asked me to join his band, that was like 1994. I had played with them a few times before that.

It's like nine years after you guys met in high school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, everybody who's been paying a tribute to him, when they talk about the first time they met him, usually as a teenager, you know, all these big names. They mentioned that he was like a fully formed player by this point. But that's really more of a personality thing.

He seems to have just like, there's such a strong character and sense of self that it just came through probably from an early age. Was that your experience? Yeah, yeah. I mean, he was, you know, he was interesting because, And I did not know Roy well ever. There's a lot of musicians that knew him, you know, that I think were close with him at different times,

much closer than I was. And I didn't play with him for long, although we, you know, we played in different situations over the years. So I was fortunate to be around him and to play with him. But it was really just that one year, what kind of year and a half, 94, 95 that I played in his band. But we worked a lot. But, I mean, I didn't even really, I mean, I had a couple of kind of in-depth conversations with him on the road, but not that many. He was always kind of like practicing or off on his own and the rest of the band was sort of hanging on. I mean, he would hang with us, but he kind of, you know, did his own thing.

I mean, he was not, you know, afraid of being alone and stuff. But so a lot of my interaction with him was just through music and which really, I think, befits his personality. And I've heard that from a lot of other people. But he was an interesting combination because he was very confident, always in his playing, but his confidence was sort of right at the level that he was at. He was never like cocky or anything. He was a very humble player, like the way that he played and the way that he would play

with anybody. Like he was never above playing in with, you know, if he went to a jam session and the band wasn't that happening, he would never just like leave. He wanted to play. He wanted to be the one to kind of elevate things and educate people through his playing. But that humility and stuff I think really came out in his sound. That's the way I always heard it, you know. Yeah.

I mean, a lot of people have been saying how humble he was and how generous he was with his time to young musicians. Oh my God. Yeah. Into the scene, which you, you know, again, you see the flashy clothes and you think, like, oh, maybe he's just like, you know, cocky and doesn't, but he's, he wasn't, in my experience, either. He wasn't like that at all. Super humble guy. Yeah. Easy to talk to. And it all came through in the horn, too, which was quite amazing. Yep.

Another thing that strikes me, well, two things that really have struck me thinking about him so much the past couple days is that it's been, it's hard to think of someone who combined the history of the music and the future of the music as well as he did at the same time, it was always there. You know, like you always felt like you were leaning forward. Even when he was playing straight down the middle, you know, swinging stuff, it felt like it was a forward-leaning concept. And then we would do stuff like the RH. The H factory, yeah, yeah.

Like, then that was very forward, in general, always felt grounded in the history. You know what I mean? I was like, that's amazing. That is the unicorn. That's hard for people to get, you know, and what we try to do so often. but I think that just speaks to his level of commitment to learning the music the right way and going back and to really understanding it

in order to go forward. No, that's a very important thing. I think that that's a huge part of his legacy and will and should be is his ability to, you know, it's really, there's an authenticity that he brought to the different projects that he did to the forward, you know, forward facing tendencies of his music.

It was not like a gimmick, you know. at all. Like he could pull it off. The same way like he would dress, like he would wear a really sharp suit and then like some Jordans with a different color. It looked awesome. It would look good. You know, whereas if I tried it or most people tried it, it would be like a gimmick or whatever. Right. But he did that with his music. And on the trumpet, it's not that easy to do. Like what he, like you think about saxophone players that can kind of pull that off, you know, going through different genres. I think it's a little bit easier. At least it's been done more. Yeah. But Roy, like, had a deep understanding of, you know, hip hop music.

and hip hop culture and really came up in that, but he was like an old head kind of throwback jazz guy. Yeah. And so as opposed to saying, I'm gonna jump back and forth from these things, which he could have done, he brought them both together all the time. I mean, like, I remember when we were playing,

even like back in 94, and he hadn't done any of his like official crossover projects or whatever, but we were constantly putting like hip hop stuff into the set, into the acoustic setup. Yeah. I mean, I remember doing these like late night gigs in Paris at this club,

um, called Hot Brass. It doesn't exist anymore that we had another nickname for it. But it was like, you know, Roy was like we would do the jazz set and then the audience would kind of change as this like we did like three sets or something. You know a little looser, a little wilder. Yeah, well he would just like sense it from the audience like they wanted something else and then we would go into doing like some funk stuff, some hip-hop stuff from the day, some parliament, whatever it was and just fit it in with like, it wasn't like, okay, let's get another band and new instruments and it was like it was so authentic. I love. learned so much about being able to kind of, you know, genre band and jump around for Roy, because he did it like totally from the heart and totally authentically. You know, one of our blindfold tests a couple weeks ago we had, for me, you would put in there the Straussburg St. Denis, you know, which is like a total kind of crossoverish song, but still feels like it could be

on Blue Note in the 60s somehow. Like, I mean, it doesn't actually sound like that, but it has that feel of like it's a modern sort of groove, but it feels timeless and like jazz. somehow still all at the same time. And I think one of the amazing things I was thinking of is there's only a handful of people in the last 25 years that have added to things that you hear at jam sessions. And that's one that I hear at jam sessions, at least around here in St. Louis, cats play it all the time. Right.

Because it's like a memorable thing. It's a hit. It's a hit. A little jazz hit. It's a little jazz hit. How often does that happen anymore? You know, it's very maybe one hand, two hands you can count in the last 25 years for that kind of stuff. It's hard.

And I think that speaks to his, like, universal appeal with both his personality, his music, his style. That's another thing I keep thinking of is like a stylish musician in not a superficial way, in a way that like Miles was stylish and, you know, Lewis Armstrong was stylish in a way that it mattered, that it was like that it's slick and it helps, you know, kind of make you feel something about the music that's not just like playing the changes and then now we take it outside and, you know, it was bigger than that. He's like the opposite of a jazz nerd in all the right ways and that he was also a jazz nerd. Like musically, he was a total jazz nerd.

I mean, like he knew every tune he could sit. I mean, I remember like he showed me, you know, when I was playing with him early on, he was like, man, do you know, I remember Clifford. And I was like ashamed. Like I didn't really know it. I mean, I kind of knew it. But I was like, oh, not really. Because he was, we were about, it's like right before the gig. And he's like, oh, I'm going to show it to you.

And he sat down at the piano and just like ran through the chains with like beautiful. voicings and like and then he's kind of looking at me like do you have it and I was like he's like oh that's cool I write it out and then he just like sat down and wrote it out this perfect chart for it with like the melody and the chord changes and like but that was sort of like he really did a lot of homework early on and then continued to but he had like you know by that by the time he was in his early 20s he had amassed such an sort of institutional knowledge of jazz yeah that you know his trumpet playing the creative creativity the band leading the the the the composer and all that had like such a strong foundation in which to build these other things.

Yeah. And then, you know, it's interesting you bring up, you know, Miles Davis and I don't want to overstate any of this, but I would almost say that like to me, Roy, you know, moved between different styles, and which is something that, you know, Miles was a master at and sort of known as, and they're both trouble players. But I would almost say that like Roy did that in an easier and more authentic way even than Miles. And it's not about pitting them against each other. It just kind of brings to mind, you know, Miles was very much like moved into, you know, he took a break and then did different things and he was very forward-looking. Yeah. Like in a little bit more of a, of a, you know, measured way maybe, whereas Roy was just authentic. He was just authentic. And not

to say that Miles wasn't, but he wasn't as calculating as that. Like, you know, Roy really played what he heard and moved between these styles in a way, in a position of authority. It was just effortless the way. I mean, in the same. In the same. time that he was recording sort of straight ahead-ahead-ish sounding records or stuff with the R-H factor, you know, he was doing the Sulkarian thing with Questlove and Herkabadu and DeAngelo and all these folks, I mean, and really fitting in seamlessly, you know, and adding quite a bit to all that. Another thing that I think that stands out, and we can talk about this a little bit, is, you

know, our mutual friend Montes Coleman played in his band for five years, and ever since I've known Montez, he talks about Roy that his, that his greatest strength is his ability to play just the melody and just the melody. You know, like not adding any flurries or any extra notes, but do it in a way on a ballad that is just perfect and fits the song exactly. Yeah. And I think we'll go out with a ballad with Roy Hargrove playing to put that point home. Yeah. So, yeah, just love and big ups, respect.

And we miss you, Roy. But your music lives on, your legacy lives on and love you.