Recorded at Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios in New York, Hard Groove was mixed down in analog to simulate the live show ambiance of a juke joint, tavern, or even a South African shebeen-right in your home. The album opens up with "Hardgroove," a bass-driven, midtempo song that actually lays down the mood trajectory of the album's overall soundscape, and that is definitely "the funk."
To paraphrase jazz master Duke Ellington, the jazz musician is the freest person in the world, with freedom being the very essence of jazz. Roy Hargrove exemplifies that free spirit to the fullest. Although this trumpet and flugelhorn player is a former protégé of Wynton Marsalis, and by extension an aesthetic grandson of Ralph Ellison, chronologically Hargrove is one of us - a straight-up hip hop head. The 33-year-old Dallas native, rocking locks and dirty denims has created a hub for jazz, R&B, hip hop, and funk on Hard Groove, representing an expanded musical sensibility of a much-underestimated generation.
The free spirit that manifests itself as Roy Hargrove, always manages to show up in places where "the funk" is emanated. He can be found on D'Angelo's Vodoo, and most notably his trumpet punctuated frenzied vocals on "Spanish Joint," which he co-wrote. He also provided horn lines on the latest Neville Brothers CD. On the international scene, he frolicked with Macy Gray on the remake of Fela Kuti's "Water No Got Enemy" from the Red Hot + Riot CD. And we all remember his warm horn spooning the soul bearing lyrics of Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun. That horn was even ambling around Common's rhymes on Like Water For Chocolate, and also mastered Afro-Cuban rhythms on Habana, made with Hargrove's former band, Crisol.
Now after a track record of producing quality classical jazz albums, the Grammy awardee, composer, and bandleader, is sporting a new sound with assistance from Q-Tip, Erykah Badu, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Common. For those who believe this mixing of genres is a big deal, it's not. Ramsey Lewis once got up with Earth Wind and Fire on Sun Goddess, and Quincy Jones went cold-disco with songs like "Ai No Corrida," and his collabs on early Michael Jackson joints. But don't forget about Miles, and Branford Marsalis, and all those other free spirits like them - respected jazz cats who kept it real by following their sonic hearts as they dipped their horns into hip hop beats or "the funk".
For Hard Groove, Hargrove enlisted a new band he dubbed The RH Factor, and most of the members were classmates of Hargrove's at Booker T. Washington's High School of Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, including Erykah Badu.
Three songs deep into the set and the mood becomes intensely melancholy as D'Angelo, one of the many guests on Groove, wails from a place so deep within that it sounds as if he's belting from the pit of his groin. The background singers, including Hargrove, sound equally distraught. The song, a gospelized reworking of Parliament/Funkadelic's "I'll Stay," is remniscent of the lovelorn angst captured in The Dells' "The Love We Had (Stays On My Mind)."
While "I'll Stay" is one song on Hard Groove that actually lives its full life, there are many songs that seem to end prematurely and leave you wondering what happened to the rest. For instance, "Juicy," a six minute and thirty-four seconds long track, cuts off right as it reaches its climax. On the cut, former Zhane songbird, Renee Neufville plays keyboards and sings in a sexy evening voice: "Juicy like a Georgia peach, yeah/ you got me open and I'm feigning, now." But it's the soulful "Kwah/Home" that wins, hands down, for leaving the listener hanging and asking, "What the?"
For those awaiting a rumored A Tribe Called Quest reunion album, "Poetry" serves as an appetizer, featuring Q-Tip vocals and a self-reflective essay sung by Erykah Badu that's based on a conversation she and Hargrove had just hours before the recording. "Pastor T" and "Out Of Town," are both percussion led songs with wildly dissonant horn solos and staunch baselines. Hargrove's flugelhorn saunters gentlemanly through "Forget Regret," in a call-and-response fashion.
Hargrove's body of work will not end with Hard Groove. It's more likely the first installment of a work in progress as he follows his passion more than his training. And though his passion is "the funk" and R&B, elements of his classical jazz tutelage remain close to his vest. To best sum it up, Hard Groove is a little like straight-ahead jazz, smoothed out on an adult oriented hip hop tip, with lots of funky vibes thrown in. Hard Groove establishes an impossibly thorough blueprint for hip hop/jazz fusion, and don't forget "the funk."
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