Roy Hargrove was discovered by Wynton Marsalis when he was visiting Hargrove’s high school in Dallas, Texas. That high school, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts also produced Norah Jones and Erykah Badu. Hargrove, one of the most gifted trumpet players of his generation, was born on October 16, 1969.

After high school Hargrove spent a year studying at the Berklee College of Music in Boston before transferring to the New School in New York City. While there Hargrove made his first recording as a member of Bobby Watson’s group on the album “No Question About It,” released in 1988. Two years later, after spending time playing in the group Superblue with Watson, Mulgrew Miller and Kenny Washington, Hargrove released his first album as a leader, “Diamond in the Rough.” That album and the three additional albums Hargrove made with his quintet were among the most commercially successful jazz records of the early 1990s. During that period he won the DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll award for “Rising Star - Trumpet” three consecutive years.

In 1993 Hargrove was commissioned to write a jazz suite for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and in 1995 he founded the Roy Hargrove Big Band. That group toured internationally and featured original compositions and arrangements by Hargrove and others. In the late 1990s Roy was a member of a collective known as Soulquarians which included Questlove and Common.

In all, Roy Hargrove would record 25 albums as a leader and appear on dozens more as a sideman. During his career he would win two Grammy awards and be elected to the DownBeat Magazine Jazz Hall of Fame. He also was one of those responsible for the creation of the non-profit performance space The Jazz Gallery in New York.

Hargrove suffered from kidney failure and was on dialysis for the last 14 years of his life. He passed away on November 2, 2018 from cardiac arrest brought on by his struggles with kidney failure.

Here is a link to a Hargrove studio performance at KPLU radio in 2009:

"SOULFUL"