Roy Hargrove - The Trumpet King Returns - Listen Up!

If there’s one trumpeter alive today that could hope, in some small way, to be as cool as Miles Davis himself, that man is Roy Hargrove. It’s a comparison that though steeped in expectation is actually one that bears fruit on many levels. Hargrove’s innate sense of style, his buoyant, often-playful attitude, and most importantly his restless search for something new in his playing and music. It’s also evident in his dual personality of both soulful balladeer and arch hipster; he’s a funky cat and no mistake. Yet he does both with ease and a heartfelt passion. 

The Texas-born trumpeter is now approaching 40, though his eternally youthful personality still exudes the energy of man ten years his junior. And it’s with this personal milestone looming, and almost twenty years since his solo debut ‘Diamond In The Rough’ was released in 1989, that he releases his latest LP, ‘Earfood’, which many will find both striking in its maturity and listenable in its effortless blend of RH’s hooky melodies and that irrepressible ability to groove with real depth and lyricism.

It’s also an album that displays Hargrove’s own way of reconciling his dalliances to both the deep jazz tradition that saw him ‘discovered’ as a 16 year old prodigy by Wynton Marsalis, but also his inevitable interest in funk, R&B and pop. His string of acclaimed solo albums has indeed featured steady progress in both his hard swinging traditional side and his edgy funk-into-soul pop albums under the guise of the RH Factor.  Here with an all-acoustic band, they create beautiful layers of chords, mixing harmony and ...

Lizz Wright - Artis Feature and Video

With Lizz Wright's first two Verve releases, Salt and Dreaming Wide Awake, establishing her as one of the jazz world's most celebrated rising stars, she since proved herself as an accomplished songwriter and a versatile, deeply expressive singer.  Now about to release her third album The Orchard, the Georgia-bred, New York-based artist makes a quantum leap forward to reveal her own deeply expressive, finely wrought songs to deliver a vibrant, intensely creative musical milestone.

Writing many of the songs on the The Orchard herself, Wright mines her own experience to create an unmistakably personal musical statement.  The intimacy and authority of such original compositions as ‘Coming Home’, ‘My Heart’, ‘Another Angel’ and ‘When I Fall’ match the warmth and resonance of her gospel-trained contralto.  Wright's interpretive skills are equally impressive on revelatory readings of the Ike and Tina Turner classic ‘I Idolize You’, Sweet Honey in the Rock's ‘Hey Mann’, the Led Zeppelin ballad ‘Thank You’ and Patsy Cline's haunting ‘Strange’.

Born into a religious family and thrust into the heart of the Gospel scene, singer Lizz Wright started honing her amazing voice from a young age. “We all go through our stages as singers, you know, initially you either sound too much like the greats or too untrained and not informed enough, it took a while and I can’t even say now that I’ve really found it yet, but I’ve definitely been searching for it.”

Thus The Orchard reflects Wright's lifelong musical journey. Born in the small rural town of Hahira, Georgia, one of three children of a minist...

Herbie Hancock: Jazz Giant - Artist Feature

Mercurial jazz giant and piano icon, Herbie Hancock perhaps unwittingly, perhaps not, underlined his own musical versatility with his seminal 1973 funk masterpiece ‘Chameleon’. Since then it’s been his constant shape shifting into different areas of jazz – and music as a whole – has made him a continually compelling figure in music. Even when he delves into the outright experimental with his electronica-laden funk and fusion projects, he can switch to hard-swinging acoustic jazz piano in a second. He’s grounded in both a vast classical and jazz knowledge and that ultimately brings to bear a depth and beauty to his masterly piano playing and overall musical vision.

Thus his triumph at this year’s Grammy Awards with a hugely significant win for Album Of The Year – the most prestigious award for any artist, in any category – is an affirmation of the highest order for this uncompromising musical visionary. His album ‘River: The Joni Letters’ is a rare combination of deeply insightful jazz combined with some of the most profound song writing of the last fifty years. It’s a modern classic without doubt – but one that Herbie himself perhaps wasn’t aware that he was creating at the time.   

Depending on the day, Herbie Hancock might perform any number of roles.  He's the America's first-call jazz ambassador, a futuristic technology advocate, a dedicated educator, and of course, an American music luminary.  Most of all, like all great artists he makes things new again.  He did it for us with The New Standard, when he found the swing and the meanin...