Earfood – Roy Hargrove

You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians

Jazz pianists Adam Maness and Peter Martin conduct a deep dive into Roy Hargrove's 2008 masterpiece, Earfood. The episode explores Hargrove'

Key takeaways

• Roy Hargrove served as a 'brand ambassador' connecting jazz, hip-hop, and neo-soul genres.
• The album Earfood is highlighted as an ideal entry point for listeners curious about jazz.

Main topics

• Roy Hargrove's musical legacy
• Earfood album analysis

Notable quotes

He was like the brand ambassador between jazz, hip-hop, neo-soul.

Conclusion

A profound celebration of a musician whose ability to blend genres cre

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) He was like the brand ambassador between jazz, hip-hop, neo-soul. Like, he's the cross-pollinator, right? Speaker 3 (0:07) Yeah. Time to revisit one of the all-time classics of the 21st century, Roy Hargrove's 2008 masterpiece, Speaker 2 (0:16) Ear Food. Yes. This is, I think, one of the greatest entry-point jazz albums for people that are jazz-curious. So now that I've piano-splained it, let's listen to it again. Speaker 3 (0:32) I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Music explored. Explored brought to you today by Open Studio. Go to OpenStudioJazz.com for... Speaker 3 (0:44) your jazz lesson needs, Peter. It's good to be back in the saddles. Oh, buddy. And it's a good one Speaker 4 (0:49) today because Speaker 3 (0:50) this is one of our favorite albums. In fact, we did this album a long, long time ago before the show is what it is now. And we thought it was time to revisit one of the all-time classics of the 21st century. And that is Roy Hargrove's 2008 masterpiece, Speaker 2 (1:04) Ear Food. You know, I'm excited about this because you love this record. I love this record. We have a lot of personal connection and love for this. But I'm also excited because I think there's going to be quite a few of our dear listeners that are not super familiar with this record. I was wondering about that. Yeah. You think this is Speaker 3 (1:21) under the radar at this point? I Speaker 2 (1:23) mean, in terms of, like, if you came to us for D'Angelo or for Michael Jackson and you're jazz curious, you might be a little intimidated because you're like, I got to go back to Louis Armstrong and then Miles Davis and all. It's like, no, this is, I think, one of the greatest entry point jazz albums for people that are jazz curious or just great improvisatory. Music, black American music, especially something that's relatively recent. I always think about this as Speaker 3 (1:46) a recent Speaker 2 (1:46) record. It's actually 18 years old. Well, I Speaker 3 (1:48) mean, if you came to the show via D'Angelo, you're going to be very happy because Roy Hargrove is the trumpeter on those famous D'Angelo records, Voodoo and Black Messiah. And a Speaker 2 (1:58) huge creative force on two of... D'Angelo's three records. Yeah, a member of Speaker 3 (2:04) the Soulquariums. Speaker 2 (2:05) He also was Speaker 3 (2:06) on Erykah Badu's albums, Common's albums. Speaker 2 (2:08) So Speaker 3 (2:09) let's do a little bit of a deep dive. Before we get into Ear Food, just a little bit of catch-up of where this finds Roy. in his career because this is one of the last albums he made are Speaker 2 (2:19) we gonna have a little bit of a mustard too because it's a little relish Speaker 3 (2:22) a little mustard a little ketchup so okay roy hargrove was born in waco texas in 1969 he was raised in dallas and he was discovered by winton marcellus in high school yes at the same time you were and i know you've told the story before but a little recap of how that works went in the early internet Speaker 2 (2:37) Wynton discovering Roy was a much more exciting prospect all around than discovering me because, I mean, mainly just because he's an incredible trumpeter, discovering a young trumpeter, kind of the handing of the torch, which was very much. But Wynton was just like discovering and connecting a number of high school jazz. want to be jazz players during that time in a pre-internet, pre-social media time in such an interesting way because it was literally just Wynton being like, here's my phone number. Keep in touch if you have any questions. But then he would connect several of us. So I remember talking to Wynton and I met him right around the same time. And I said, oh, my band is doing, we're going to this thing in Dallas. It was like the NAJE convention. And he's like, oh, you got to look up. this trumpet player, Roy Hargrove. I was like, wait, what's his name? He's like, Roy Hargrove. I'm like, I literally wrote his name down. And at the time, it wasn't like, give me his email address or phone number. It was like, I'll find him. In Dallas, let's do it, Speaker 1 (3:31) you know? And I did. Walk into the ballroom, Speaker 2 (3:33) Roy Hargrove! Yeah. But I mean, Wynton, among the many wonderful things he's done to prop up and propagate this music and promote. The three Ps. I don't know why I said that. You just coined it right now. Prop up, propagate, promote. Yeah. To populate the music. Prognosticate. I mean, he was a connector. He was the internet of the 80s. Which is interesting because Wynn's a little bit of a Luddite. Got his first smartphone about six months ago, I believe. But no, so he connects. So when I went down to Dallas when I was in, I don't know, I was I think a sophomore in high school. I went and found, he was playing with his high school band, which was a really legendary place, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts out of Dallas. Speaker 3 (4:16) Yeah, legendary high school. Erykah Badu was a year behind him. And actually, Erykah Badu talks about just looking up to Roy as like a musical inspiration when she was young. Speaker 2 (4:25) Nora Jones also went Speaker 3 (4:26) to that same high school. That's right. Well, let's get Speaker 2 (4:28) into... Speaker 3 (4:28) No, that Speaker 2 (4:29) was Houston. Same state. Speaker 3 (4:30) Pretty far away. Speaker 2 (4:31) Kendrick Scott. Nope. Houston. Speaker 3 (4:33) Let's get into some of the early recordings of Roy Hargrove. So his first album, Diamond in the Rough, this is BHG. This features Roy on trumpet, Open Studio's own Jeffrey Kieser on piano, Charles Fambro on bass, Ralph Peterson on drums, and Ralph Moore on tenor saxophone. Oh. 1990. Roy on the trumpet, Jeffrey Kieser on the piano, Charles Fambro on bass, Ralph Peterson on drums, Ralph Moore on Speaker 4 (5:00) saxophone. Ooh, Speaker 3 (5:00) Ralph Peterson. Come on. Speaker 2 (5:04) This is... Speaker 2 (5:06) This either sounds like a Bobby Watson or very influent. Well, he was playing with Bobby Watson around this time. Bobby Watson. We haven't spoken his name enough on the pod. Speaker 2 (5:17) Man, Ralph Peterson. Speaker 4 (5:18) Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:18) And I think Speaker 3 (5:19) Roy and Jeffrey Kieser were roommates in college around this time or maybe just before. I know Roy Speaker 2 (5:25) was at Speaker 3 (5:25) Berklee. Yeah, I think it was Berklee. So that's from Diamond in the Rough. That's Roy's first album as Speaker 2 (5:31) a leader. Speaker 3 (5:31) RCA Novus. Next, let's check in with Roy a couple years later, 1994. This is a great album called Tenors of Our Time, which featured a bunch of amazing tenor saxophonists. Stanley Speaker 2 (5:42) Turrentine. That's right. Johnny Griffin. Branford Marcellus, I think. Joshua Redman. Well, on this track, Joshua Speaker 3 (5:48) Redman. And this is mental phrasing. Cyrus Chestnut on the piano on this. Gregory Hutchinson on the drums. Rodney Whitaker on the bass. Speaker 3 (6:06) I mean, this whole era of the early 90s and Roy Hargrove, no one's doing Straight Ahead better than him at this point, in my opinion. He's just crushing these albums. It feels so genuine. You can hear his love for Straight Ahead jazz in a way that's not like, yeah, this is what it should be. There's no attitude about like, it's just like, this is what's coming out of me. It's so Speaker 2 (6:27) natural. It's not dogmatic. It's so great. And it's not like this weird throwback to like, let's put on Speaker 3 (6:32) some old clothes. Speaker 2 (6:33) No, it feels fresh. Cosplay, swing and jazz. But you know what I realized? It took me, I mean, actually in 94, I played with Roy pretty much that whole year in his band up until the beginning of 95. We didn't realize it at the time because we were all young and dumb, but excited. Like, Roy was, he was kind of like, you know, you have a bunch of... like good athletes on a football team. And like, they're waiting for a quarterback to come in. Not even waiting for a coach, just waiting for somebody like that one piece of the puzzle. the leader, but like this out there plant, like that's right in the middle of it. Like that was very much Roy. Not that like Greg Hutchinson wasn't killing it with a bunch of other things. There was other, but like Roy, he just had this ability to bring out the best in all of us and make it so exciting without Speaker 3 (7:17) any kind of like dogmatism or anything like that. Yeah, it's really Speaker 2 (7:20) great. And you hear it Speaker 3 (7:21) coming out of this, right? Yeah, well, and speaking of sort of his openness to all kinds of music. We're going to check in with him now in the year 2000. This is from an album that we have talked about a lot on this show. It's D'Angelo's Voodoo. Yeah. I think we did an episode on this. He's all over this. This is Spanish joint. Speaker 2 (7:39) Yeah. I Speaker 3 (7:39) think Speaker 2 (7:40) he co-wrote this. Speaker 3 (7:41) I Speaker 2 (7:42) don't know if he got credit for it, but... I Speaker 4 (7:44) think he did. Woo! Speaker 2 (7:52) Charlie Hunter. On bass and guitar. That's right. Speaker 4 (8:09) Little horn Speaker 3 (8:30) things that are happening. Yeah. Speaker 4 (8:33) He Speaker 3 (8:33) doesn't, it's not like he blows for a long time on this album. There's a ton of subtle, subtle stuff. It's all these, he's like the choir. Yeah. Speaker 2 (8:50) We'll use any excuse to like. I Speaker 3 (8:52) know. Speaker 2 (8:52) Should we just listen to Voodoo? We can connect Voodoo with anything. No, but this is such a, I mean, like this was such a big part of Roy's progression. I can see where you're going with this and where we're going today. You know, part of his musical lineage, but like really transformative for him in terms of he was like the ambassador, the brand ambassador between jazz, hip hop. Neo soul. Although he didn't love that term either. Nobody loved it. But I mean, like whatever this was, like he's, he's the cross pollinator, right? Yeah. And because Speaker 3 (9:22) he's on voodoo and voodoo is now legendarily taking a long time to make. And all of these great musicians now known as sort of the soul querians are spending time there in the studio. Roy is one of them. And he starts to make. music with a lot of people who were hanging around there. So his first album under the RH factor called Hard Groove, which is another album that we've talked about on the show, features these musicians. This is Poetry featuring Q-Tip, Erykah Badu, Michelle and Dick Lucello, Mark Carey on The Whirly. Yeah. Speaker 1 (10:02) Again, this is a Speaker 2 (10:03) Roy Hargrove album. Yeah. Speaker 1 (10:05) Mark Carey. Shout Speaker 2 (10:06) out Mark Carey. I followed him in Roy's band and Speaker 1 (10:09) learned Speaker 2 (10:10) all of Roy's music from listening to Mark Carey. Stylish. Speaker 1 (10:13) Still killing Speaker 2 (10:14) it. Speaker 2 (10:24) And this was like around Speaker 1 (10:25) 2000, 2001? Speaker 2 (10:27) This is 2003. 2003. Speaker 1 (10:31) So that's kind of music that Roy is putting Speaker 3 (10:37) out. And then next is the next RH Factor is 2006. This is Bullshit featuring D'Angelo. Again. Speaker 4 (10:44) In Speaker 3 (10:45) the studio. Speaker 4 (10:48) Sounds Speaker 3 (10:48) like Speaker 2 (10:49) voodoo too. It does. Speaker 2 (10:54) All right, we got to do this record too. I know. We got to... It's so good, man. We got to connect the hard groove Speaker 3 (11:00) to this. Well, at the same year, 2006, around the same time, he released... I Speaker 2 (11:04) think Speaker 3 (11:04) the same day. It was the same day. Simultaneously, that's right. Speaker 2 (11:06) We're going to say it was the same day. He Speaker 3 (11:08) released an album with his quintet. Now, the whole time he's doing all this stuff with D'Angelo and Eric Abadou and all these people and Common, he's still keeping his quintet alive as a touring band, and he's recording. He releases a live album. Because it's classy to have something called a quintet. Well, no, it's just another form of his expression. By the way, he's got some badass folks in his quintets over the years. I mean, just like, he's like one of those bands, like Art Blakey's band or Miles' band, where like young musicians would come through his band over the decades. It's Speaker 2 (11:37) crazy. Speaker 3 (11:37) And this is from the album just before Ear Food called Nothing Serious with his quintet at the time. Justin Robinson on the alto saxophone. Slide Hampton on the trombone, Ronnie Matthews on piano, Dwayne Burno on bass, and Willie Jones III on drums. Invitation. Yeah, Speaker 2 (12:09) I mean, this is Roy's bread, butter, margarine, everything. Who's Speaker 3 (12:14) this Speaker 2 (12:14) on drums? Live, Willie Jones III. Oh, Willie Jones, right. Speaker 2 (12:19) Oh, man, he had so many great, well, not so many, but a line of great drummers. You're talking about, well, Ralph Peterson. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, he played with them. Greg Hutchinson, of course. I mean, that was legendary time period. Willie Jones III. Of course, Montez Coleman. We're going to be talking a lot about him today. Boom, boom, boom. Quincy, Quincy Phillips, who I believe was the last drummer to play with. Well, and Speaker 3 (12:45) think about all his piano players. We mentioned. Mark Carey. Yep. We've mentioned... Jeffrey Kieser. Jeffrey Kieser. Peter Martin. Yep. Speaker 2 (12:53) Sullivan Fornick. Speaker 3 (12:54) Cyrus Chestnut. Cyrus Chestnut. Came Speaker 2 (12:55) in Speaker 3 (12:55) right after me. Yeah, John Batiste. I think was maybe his last... No, it was a... I want to say a Japanese guy. Oh, you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. It was really good. But yeah, man, like incredible bands. Larry Willis. Larry Willis. Larry Willis. Shout Speaker 2 (13:07) out Larry Willis, the OG. Speaker 3 (13:09) Yeah, the quintet legendary. I'm sorry. I Speaker 2 (13:11) know we're forgetting some people. Speaker 3 (13:12) Yeah, there's a ton of – in fact, after Roy passed away in 2018, there were a bunch of concerts all over the country and all over the world actually with people who had played with him. Yeah. Speaker 2 (13:22) Weren't you involved in Speaker 4 (13:22) one in Chicago? Speaker 2 (13:23) Yeah. Yeah. With Nicholas Payton. I mean, you know, like Roy was really somebody – I mean, we just lost him too early. Did he even make it to 50? No, 49. 49. What a – I mean, it's still like that one, a number of us that were – in his orb and still talk about this when we get together. And there was a lot of back and forth. It just hurts. It hurts not only for him as a person, as a son, as a father, as a brother, but for all of us as our musical brother. They come up at the same time when you, of course, when you lose anybody. I mean, Dwayne Burnham, we mentioned. We lost him even earlier. I mean, I got a chance to play with him when we were 20 years old with Betty Carter. Incredible force in the music. But when you lose somebody like Roy that was such a conduit for transformation in the music, I think we're going to see that in particular with this, what you just played us, but also with Ear Food today. But I can't tell you how many musical relationships. that even more importantly led to life relationships that Roy was somehow the kind of, he wasn't the kind of guy who'd be like, hey, Peter, I want you to meet the, no, he would just go into different situations with different bands and assemble people or go to a jam session. But somehow he was always at the center of something extraordinary musically happening. I mean, not every single note, every minute, I'm not saying, but I mean, like you look at these different bands and you look at the people that came away. But I mean, like, I remember meeting Ron Blake, who, you know, is one of the most, you know, precious people. on the world to me now, later on, because of Roy. Amazing musician. You know, because Roy asked me to come in. Yeah. And Greg, I mean, Greg I knew before. Greg actually brought me into the fold. So there's all these different layers. Yeah. And so when you lose somebody like that, it stings. It stings hard, you know? Speaker 3 (15:05) Yeah. Well, this brings us to Ear Food. So this is recorded in 2007, released in... And I think one piano player we just left off the list there was the great Gerald Clayton. Oh, yeah. He stopped in Speaker 2 (15:17) a little bit. I mean, maybe the, like, one thing we're going to percolate on a little bit, let's put a pin in it for a minute, but like, is this the best Roy band of all time? Roy Rhythm Section? This Speaker 3 (15:28) has Speaker 2 (15:28) got to be in the conversation. Speaker 3 (15:29) Yeah. This episode of You'll Hear It is brought to you by Open Studio. For musicians looking for more confidence in their playing, right now is the best time to join Open Studio Pro. Peter, those are our live classes. Our Speaker 2 (15:39) live classes are an amazing global community of folks trying to live a more