PFT Media

Perhaps Generation X’s first jazz star, Roy Hargrove came through at a time where the ‘new’ was pushed along by the rising tide of hip-hop. Hargrove gave both the genre and the trumpet a newfound energy, one that could stand up to the changes happening as the 20th century gave way to the 21st. With two Grammys and a career that’s spanned 30 years, his talent has held its own with such titans as Joe Henderson, Shirley Horn, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, and Joshua Redman. He sadly left us too soon, but his influence lives on in his collaborations with contemporary artists such as D’Angelo, John Mayer, and Common. We pay our respects to the man with violinist Tanner Johnson, whose arrangement of Hargrove’s “Strasbourg-St. Denis” serves as a touching tribute, and Jon Lampley of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s Stay Human band, who finishes the segment with thoughtful insight and a sensitive note.

What do you get when you add all things socially aware, prescient, and entertaining with a beat? The answer is “conscience funk” and it’s the term Ghost-Note uses to describe their music. Its roots are built upon Afro-Latin musical lines, with some scat, a little disco, hip-hop, rock, jazz, and whatever else you could fit into the kitchen sink that gets the mind and body going. Ghost-Note has won Grammys as Snarky Puppy’s rhythm section, and various members have performed with Prince, Herbie Hancock, Erykah Badu, Kendrick Lamar, Justin Timberlake and others. In this segment, co-leader Nate Werth joins us to dig in about the band’s latest, Swagism. Have headphones ready, their sound is deep.