NPR is reporting that renown jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove has died of a cardiac arrest at the tender age of 49. News of his passing this morning was relayed to the media via his longtime manager. His family is in the course of penning his obituary.
Hargrove's incredible talent as a trumpeter saw him move past the confines of the jazz community, as he contributed to works by hip-hop artists like Common, Erykah Badu, and D'Angelo, among others. His precocious talent was discovered by famed-jazz arranger and bandleader Wynton Marsalis, when Hargrove was but a high school student coming up in Dallas, Texas.
Hargrove was soon jettisoned over to the prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he inevitably "outgrew" his surroundings after only one year of enrollment. He then began his professional career as a jazz musician well before reaching the legal drinking age.
In 2000, he provided all the brass arrangements on Erykah Badu's 2nd album Mama's Gun. Within the first couple years of his "deployment," Roy had already formed his own quintet, taking the Jazz World by storm. Those who know, know.
At the tender age of 49, Roy Hargroves had amassed a discography the likes of which normally takes "regularly productive" musicians a lifetime to complete. My sympathies go out to Roy's family and those who knew him best.
