Roy Hargrove

ROY ANTHONY HARGROVE was born on 16 October, 1969, in Waco, Texas. He lived with relatives in the small town of Mart before moving to Dallas when he was eight and his father was discharged from the air force.

Both of his parents were musically inclined, and young Roy was nine when he began playing a cornet his father bought at a pawn shop. He was recognised as a prodigy and attended a high school for the performing arts in Dallas.

His teachers introduced him to the recordings of Clifford Brown, Fats Navarro, Miles Davis and other jazz trumpeters, and at 17 he met Marsalis, who came to the school for a clinic. Marsalis helped arrange for private lessons, and Hargrove was soon appearing with major jazz stars. He studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston before moving to New York.

He released more than dozen albums by the time he was 30. Several of them, including Diamond in the Rough (1990), Of Kindred Souls (1993), With the Tenors of Out Time (1994), Approaching Standards (1995) and Parker’s Mood (1995), were acclaimed as among the finest jazz recordings of their time.

In 2014, Hargrove was convicted of cocaine possession in New York. He had been on dialysis for 13 years, his manager, Larry Clothier, said.

Hargrove died of complications from kidney disease on 2 November, 2018, at a hospital in New York. He was 49. He is survived by his wife, Aida Brandes; a daughter from an earlier relationship, Kamala Hargrove; his mother, Jacklyn Hargrove; and a brother.

Hargrove maintained three working bands until his death: RH Factor, a 21-piece big band and an acoustic jazz quintet.

For all his adventurousness, he never abandoned jazz but saw different styles of music as part of a intertwined rainbow of expression.