The RH Factor

American trumpeter Roy Hargrove was born in Waco, Texas, on October 16, 1969, and died in New York on November 2, 2018. He was one of the most acclaimed jazz musicians in his field. Influenced by the hard bop movement, one of the "young lions" of his generation, Hargrove's debut album Diamond in the Rough (1991) and subsequent albums of covers and premieres were warmly received, and the Wynton Marsalis protégé displayed an energetic yet sensitive style of playing that enabled him to excel, whether in a traditional style on Moment to Moment (2000) or Earfood (2008), in Cuban music with pianist Chucho Valdés on Habana (1998) or in funk, leading The RH Factor on Hard Groove (2003) and Distractions (2006). A regular on European stages, from New Morning to the Marciac festival, he stopped recording after Emergence (2009), experiencing health problems and battling his drug addiction. Leader of several bands, successively Roy Hargrove's Crisol, Roy Hargrove with Strings, The Roy Hargrove Quintet and The Roy Hargrove Big Band, he died of a heart attack at the age of 49. Six years later, in 2024, he released his posthumous album Grande-Terre, with contributions from Guadeloupe saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart.