I'm biased. Roy Hargrove can do no wrong for me. Let's start with the setting. Two years ago he packed out the Union Chapel and to my untrained eye Shoreditch Town Hall is smaller so how come there were so many empty seats especially in the first six or eight rows. I didn't bother but a lot of people slipped into better seats after twenty minutes. It's weird because I booked early and row J was the best available. Whatever happened it left the place feeling a little odd and like you doubted you were in the right place. Nonetheless on they come at 8pm sharp. Roy sits a lot these days which I gathered by recent YouTube videos. There is a looseness to the approach which could almost feel, dare I say, lazy, but it's not, it's just his/their way. Concert starts with a couple tunes that are deliberately unstructured. The kind of jazz that I think a lot of people might grin and bare. Midway Roy switches to flugelhorn and delivers some lovely old school music with brushes, bass and piano in perfect complement. Roy sings what seems to be a new favourite and again, courtesy of YouTube I kinda knew this was coming. It's interesting. The best description is that he has perhaps entered a Chet Baker moment. A crowd pleasing bouncy duet with pianist, a short reworking of Strasbourg St Denis which I have long come to think he feels is like a weight round his neck so that he would never play it 'album like' again. Add some call and response with the audience, a great little dance skit with saxophonist, a segue into Earth Wind and Fire's 'Fantasy' (which everyone would have liked to be an entire cover version) and a fine encore and it's been a great ninety minutes where you have had excellent music spanning more than a couple of styles and a sense that, whilst they've seen it all before, the band have enjoyed themselves. Shame it was one day outside the London jazz festival in which case it may have got a more deserved recognition.

London, United Kingdom@

Shoreditch Town Hall

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About Roy Hargrove

Roy A. Hargrove (born October 16, 1969) is an American jazz trumpeter.

Hargrove was born in Dallas, Texas, and was discovered as a potential jazz talent when Wynton Marsalis visited his high school. One of his biggest influences was saxophone player David "Fathead" Newman, who played with the Ray Charles Band at Hargrove's junior high school.

Hargrove spent one year (1988–1989) studying at Boston's Berklee School of Music, but could more often be found in New York City jam sessions, and finally transferred to New York’s New School. His first recording in New York was with the saxophonist Bobby Watson. Shortly afterwards he made a recording with Superblue featuring Watson, Mulgrew Miller and Kenny Washington. In 1990 he released his first solo album, Diamond in the Rough, on the Novus/RCA label, along with four other albums.

He signed a recording contract with Verve Records, which gave him the opportunity to record with some of the major jazz musicians on With the Tenors of Our Time, including Joe Henderson, Stanley Turrentine, Johnny Griffin, Joshua Redman and Branford Marsalis. In 1993 he was commissioned by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and wrote The Love Suite: In Mahogany. Hargrove won a Grammy Award in 1998 for the album Habana with his Afro-Cuban band, Crisol.

Hargrove has recorded with a wide range of musicians, including: Sonny Rollins, Michael Brecker, Jackie McLean, Slide Hampton, Natalie Cole, Diana Krall, Abbey Lincoln, Diana Ross, Steve Tyrell, Kenny Rankin, John Mayer, Rhian Benson, Carmen McRae, Shirley Horn, Method Man, Common, Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, and Gilles Peterson.

Hargrove is the leader of the progressive group The RH Factor, which combines elements of jazz, funk, hip hop, soul, and gospel music.

Genres:

R&b/soul, Funk, Jazz, Rnb-soul

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