RH R&B

-REVIEW: of The RH Factor: Hard Groove (Roy Hargrove, Verve) (ROBERT WILONSKY, May 15, 2003, Dallas Observer)

The Booker T.-Berklee grad was Wynton Marsalis' prodigy-acolyte, so it figures most of his dozen-album catalog plays it straight--real standard-time stuff, more or less, down to the Charlie Parker trib of '95 and the tangled-up-in-string-section collection that was his last release. But Hargrove, all of 33, fares better when not being so bop, as evidenced by his '97 Habana, which made like Dizzy G. and traveled to Cuba for its inspiration and returned drenched in perspiration; it swung like an elementary-school playground at recess. But finally he sounds like a young man whose childhood record collection consisted of more than well-worn Verve vinyl; he fesses up to the Earth, Wind & Fire that was the soundtrack of his life, the Funkadelic he musta heard and felt, the Stevie Wonder he musta wondered about when not taking trumpet lessons before, during and after school. Took him a little while, but Hargrove gets off the concert stage long enough to get down with the R&B crowd, which does him a world of good; far better a Clinton-Hazel cover than one more Mancini-Mercer nod, of which we need no more.

The disc is by all reports terrific. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 23, 2003 9:35 AM