The legacy of Roy Hargrove, the acclaimed and beloved jazz trumpeter who passed away suddenly in 2018 at the age of 49, is receiving two important acknowledgments, both involving his daughter Kamala Hargrove.
On Jan. 22, Kamala and Aida Brandes-Hargrove (Hargrove’s widow) announced the establishment of Roy Hargrove Legacy LLC, which will manage Hargrove’s musical estate. The company is dedicated, in Brandes-Hargrove’s words, to “keeping Roy’s music alive and sharing it with his present and future fans.” The new company has already launched a new official website (http://www.royhargroveofficial.com) and Instagram (@groveydean) and Twitter (@groveydean) accounts.
Among Roy Hargrove Legacy LLC’s principal current projects is an examination of the trumpeter’s archive of unreleased studio and live recordings. It hopes to prepare an album release later in 2020.
Kamala Hargrove also appears in the video for a new single by jazz and R&B vocalist Renée Neufville, “Something to Believe (For Roy),” which releases today (Feb. 3) on Willie Jones III’s WJ3 Records. Jones—who played with Hargrove for nearly a decade in both the trumpeter’s acoustic quintet and his fusion ensemble the RH Factor—produced the track, which was written by Neufville (the RH Factor’s original touring vocalist) with Hargrove’s last saxophonist, Justin Robinson; Brian “Theory” Hargrove, the late musician’s younger brother, arranged strings for the single. In addition, the musical tribute features jazz musicians Bobby Ray Sparks on piano, Dezron Douglas on bass, Joel Ross on vibraphone, and Jason Thomas on drums.
The video for the track, which is available for streaming via YouTube, features Kamala Hargrove performing her original choreography in an outdoor plaza in New York’s Greenwich Village. Watch it below.
