Jazz trumpet player looking for the perfect silver note

Bathed in sweat, her gaze is infinite, moaning with anyone until the early hours of the day. The festival nights at the North Sea Jazz Festival were over, and it began for American jazz trumpet player Roy Hargrove. At the famous nocturnal jam sessions of the North Sea Jazz artist's hotel, which were almost open to the general public, first in The Hague and then in Rotterdam, he always played until 39 that the light is on. It was an endless search for the perfect money note.

Hargrove died Friday in New York, at the age of 49.

Roy Hargrove had a special connection with the Netherlands. Already at the age of seventeen, he made his debut at North Sea Jazz. He was raised and nurtured as a special artist of the house. He played almost every year with his own bands, is regularly joined with other musicians, and then played in the afterparty at the artists' hotel. But he also felt comfortable in the friendliness of the Zeeland jazz club, Porgy and Bess in Terneuzen. He came there very often while playing.

The Young Lions of Jazz & # 39; was in the late '80s, early' 90s, nickname of Hargrove's generation of young American jazz musicians. They were young and enthusiastic and still embodied the raw image that jazz traditionally had. Trumpeter Roy Anthony Hargrove, born in Waco, Texas, had a striking talent in jazz.

Hargrove was still at North Sea Jazz this year. Read about it: The Old Titans Come Together With New Names

Discovered by trumpet player Wynton Marsalis, high school student Booker T. Washington for visual arts and performing arts, fell in love with this young man Trumpet enthusiast with his "adult game", he was supported by many great masters. Hargrove quickly became one of the most remarkable musicians of the international jazz scene.

In fact, as soon as he had his first solo in the school group, at the age of ten, young Roy knew what he was doing. Solder, excel, a place for the spotlight. Encourage people and your instrument completely under control. Bring something. Happiness, love, something like that. "I want to touch people, give them something," he said once. ,, Jazz is a nude music. Outside decorations, lights and annoying gadgets. It's acoustic music, which prevents you from getting out of the light and taking someone by the throat. "

Trumpet player Roy Hargrove in 2000 at the North Sea Jazz Festival, with the Metropole Orchestra Photo Marcel Antonisse / ANP

With his extraordinary sense of money, he managed to do it headliner at world jazz festivals A number of Grammys At least in his thirties, he is constantly changing his style of music from direct jazz, bebop, blues to Afro-Cuban Latin music with his band Crisol on Habana, his Grammy-winning debut album The ballads with a string orchestra, to be heard on the "Moment to Moment" album, were a surprise and he was always attracted to the ballads He was fond of warm and velvety melodies

As a typical child of his day, the musician could never be pinned to a style.With his project The RH Factor, Hargrove s & rsquo; Is interested in the intersections of neo soul, hip hop and jazz. contributed to the recordings of the neo-soul singer Erykah Badu, the rapper Common and the singer D & # 39; Angelo ( Voodoo, Black Messiah ) and created with them, on their own album Hard Groov, a its extraordinarily pleasant and exciting of the future.
In 2009, his latest album came out with his big band – Emergence .

The fact that his substance abuse problem preoccupies him was clearly visible in the last ten years. There were no more albums of their own. The concerts were changeable; sometimes only semi-solos, impotent play and uncertain fugue. Sometimes programs were interrupted.
During his last tours, Hargrove had to be treated several times at the hospital for kidney disease. The trumpet player died Friday in New York from a heart attack