Roy Hargrove Big Band Monthly Residency

Originally started in the rehearsal space that would later become The Jazz Gallery, the Roy Hargrove Big Band had its inaugural performance at the Greenwich Village Jazz Festival in 1995. Since then, the band has toured domestically and internationally and has played everywhere from the Blue Note Tokyo to the Hollywood Bowl. Roy conducted the big band while also playing trumpet and flugelhorn and lending his vocal, most famously, on the fan favorite “September in the Rain”. The arrangements comprised of Roy’s original compositions, standards, and new music by band members and other contemporaries whom he respected. They released one album, Emergence, under Roy’s leadership in 2009.

As with everything Roy, his broad musical range is evident in his big band. Nate Chinen’s description of a big band concert at WBGO aptly captures that diversity: “Beginning with “Roy Allan,” a blaring, groove-fortified piece named after Hargrove’s father, the set moves into an original ballad titled “Trust.” Then Jon Batiste plays the elaborative piano introduction to “Mambo For Roy,” a Chucho Valdés composition originally featured on the album Habana. And this selection of excerpts concludes with a Hargrove original, “Tschpiso.”