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Roy Hargrove Quintet at the Jazz Showcase, December 9-14

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"you rehearse until you're hitting everything on the head, and here comes a band like the Savoy Sultans, raggedy, fuzzy sounding, and they upset everything.'What am I doing here?' you wonder. But that's the way it is. That's jazz. If you get too clean, too precise. you don't swing sometimes, and the fun goes out of the music." - Trombonist Dicky Wells

Thursday, 08 January 2009

Roy Hargrove Quintet at the Jazz Showcase, December 9-14

Written by Andrea Canter, Contributing Editor

Sunday, 07 December 2008

Roy Hargrove©Andrea Canter

“There’s a physical electricity to Hargrove’s performance that is not terribly common in jazz.” –David Adler

After Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove is probably the best known trumpeter on the planet today. And at 39, his output as a recording artist (13 sessions as leader) is almost as remarkable as his chops. His recent fusiony project, RH Factor, created a lot of buzz by merging R&B and hip-hop mainstream with jazz, but his past and current efforts are decidedly more Dizzy than Ice-T. As noted by Christopher Jones following a Hargrove Quintet performance at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley in Seattle, this is “straightforward, no-nonsense modern jazz…with integrity and conviction.” Hargrove brings that conviction – along with his quintet—to the Jazz Showcase in Chidago for a return engagement, December 9th to 14th .

Gerald Clayton©Andrea Canter

Inspired by gospel, R&B and funk while growing up in Waco, Texas, Hargrove was a trumpet prodigy, already working with Frank Morgan and “discovered” by Wynton Marsalis before he finished high school at the Booker T. Washington School for the Performing Arts in Dallas. Later he dropped his studies at Berklee in Boston to move to New York, enroll at the New School, and concentrate on his career as leader, sideman and major label recording artist. In addition to the funky RH Factor, he has explored Afro Cuban rhythms, pop, and above all, eclectic, straight ahead jazz, in the highly acclaimed company of Herbie Hancock and Michael Brecker and the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Band, as well as with his own Quintet.

The Roy Hargrove Quintet released Nothing Serious on Verve in 2006 and now celebrates a brand new recording, aptlyl titled Ear Food.The current quintet, with Justin Robinson (reeds), Gerald Clayton (piano), Danton Boller (bass) and Montez Coleman (drums), is a high energy, interactive, soulful collaboration. Hargrove is one of the all-too-rare jazz artists of his generation who never fails to deliver the goods at full throttle, regardless of the audience or venue. His current quintet embodies all of the elements that make live jazz live and irreplaceable regardless of technology—they play in the moment, and each moment as if it was the only moment in time. This IS something serious! Catch their "earfood" at the Jazz Showcase, December 9th - 14th .

The Jazz Showcase is located in its new digs at Dearborn Station. 806 S. Plymouth Court in downtown Chicago. Two sets per night at 8 and 10 pm every night plus 4 pm matinee on Sunday afternoons. Visit www.jazzshowcase.com

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