The death of a musician is always a sad loss for our world. Roy Hargrove, a Grammy-winning trumpeter and jazz musician died Saturday (Nov.3) at the age of 49. He died in New York due to a cardiac arrest stemming from a longtime fight with kidney disease, manager Larry Clothier said in a statement.
It was Wynton Marsalis who discovered Hargrove as a high school student. He would eventually perform alongside jazz titans like Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins and Oscar Peterson. In 1998, Roy Hargrove took home a Grammy for ‘Best Latin Jazz Performance’ for his work on Habana. Then, in 2003, he won the award for ‘Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Directions in Music’.
Moreover, the talented musician was known to have worked alongside artists like D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Common and Sonny Rollins. Many of Hargrove’s peers regarded him as the greatest trumpeter of his generation. Through his own bands and as a sideman, Hargrove brewed his jazz with African and Latin sounds, R&B, soul, pop, funk and hip-hop.
On Instagram, the Roots’ Questove paid tribute to the jazz musician:
“The Great Roy Hargrove. He is literally the one man horn section I hear in my head when I think about music.”
The drummer continued, “To watch him harmonize with himself stacking nine horn lines on mamouth 10 mins songs RARELY rewinding to figure out what he did.”