Earfood – Roy Hargrove

Peter Martin (0:00)

He was like the brand ambassador between jazz, hip-hop, neo-soul. Like he's the cross-pollinator, right?

Adam Maness (0:07)

Yeah. Time to revisit one of the all-time classics of the 21st century, Roy Hargrove's 2008 masterpiece, Earfood.

Peter Martin (0:17)

Yes. This is, I think, one of the greatest entry point jazz albums for people that are jazz curious.

So now that I've piano-splained it, let's listen to it again.

Adam Maness (0:32)

I'm Adam Maness.

Peter Martin (0:33)

And I'm Peter Martin.

Adam Maness (0:34)

And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast.

Peter Martin (0:36)

Music explored.

Adam Maness (0:38)

Explored brought to you today by Open Studio. Go to openstudiojazz.com for your jazz lesson needs, Peter.

Peter Martin (0:46)

It's good to be back in the saddles.

Adam Maness (0:48)

Buddy. It's a good one today because this is one of our favorite albums. In fact, we did this album a long, long time ago before the show is what it is now. And we thought it was time to revisit one of the all-time classics of the 21st century. And that is Roy Hargrove's 2008 masterpiece, Earfood.

Peter Martin (1:05)

You know, I'm excited about this because you love this record. I love this record. We have a lot of personal connection and love for this, but I'm also excited because I think there's going to be quite a few of our dear listeners that are not super familiar with this record. So I was wondering about that.

Adam Maness (1:20)

Do you think this is under the radar at this point?

Peter Martin (1:23)

I mean, in terms of, like, if you came to us for D'Angelo or for Michael Jackson and you're jazz curious, you might be a little intimidated because you're like, I gotta go back to Louis Armstrong and then Miles Davis and all. It's like, no, this is, I think, one of the greatest entry point jazz albums for people that are jazz curious or just great improvisatory music, black American music, especially something that's relatively recent. I always think about this as a recent record. It's actually 18 years old.

Adam Maness (1:48)

I mean, if you came to the show via D'Angelo, you're gonna be very happy because Roy Hargrove is the trumpeter on those famous D'Angelo records, Voodoo and Black Messiah.

Peter Martin (1:57)

And a huge creative force on two of D'Angelo's three records.

Adam Maness (2:02)

Yeah, one of the, a member of the Soulquariums. He also was on Erykah Badu's albums, Commons albums. So let's do a little bit of a deep dive. Before we get into Earfood, just a little bit of catch up of where this finds Roy in his career. Because this is one of the last albums he made.

Peter Martin (2:19)

Are we gonna have a little bit of a mustard too?

Adam Maness (2:21)

Little relish, little mustard, little ketchup. So Roy Hargrove was born in Waco, Texas in 1969 He was raised in Dallas and he was discovered by Wynton Marsalis in high school.

Peter Martin (2:30)

Yes.

Adam Maness (2:31)

At the same time you were, and I know you've told this story before, but a little recap of how that works. Wynton, the early internet.

Peter Martin (2:37)

Wynton discovering Roy was a much more exciting prospect all around than discovering me, because he's probably mainly just because he's an incredible trumpeter, discovering a young trumpeter, kind of the handing of the torch, which was very much. But Wynton was just like discovering and connecting a number of high school jazz, wannabe jazz players during that time in a pre-internet, pre-social media time in such an interesting way, because it was literally just Wynton being like, here's my phone number, keep in touch if you have any questions. But then he would connect several of us. So I remember talking to Wynton, and I met him right around the same time, and I said, oh, my band is doing, we're going to this thing in Dallas. It was like the NAJE convention. And he's like, oh, you gotta look up this trumpet player, Roy Hargrove. I was like, wait, what's his name? He's like, Roy Hargrove. I'm like, I literally wrote his name down.

And at the time, it wasn't like, give me his email address or phone number.

Adam Maness (3:29)

It was like, I'll find him.

Peter Martin (3:30)

In Dallas, let's do it, you know? And I did.

Adam Maness (3:32)

Walk into the ballroom, Roy Hargrove!

Peter Martin (3:34)

Yeah, but I mean, Wynton, among the many wonderful things he's done to prop up and propagate this music and promote the three P's. I don't know why I said that.