A free jazz festival returns to Mattie Nash-Myrtle Davis Park in West Dallas on Saturday, Nov. 7, running from 12:30 to 4 p.m. and honoring Dallas-raised trumpeter Roy Hargrove, who died at age 49 in 2018. The gathering lands just days after the eighth anniversary of his death, which fell on Nov. 2, giving this year's festival an added layer of remembrance for the hometown musician who helped shape modern jazz.
Brass & Jazz in the Park is now in its sixth year, according to the AT&T Performing Arts Center, which describes it as a free community event featuring live jazz, jazz dance, New Orleans brass, Black Mardi Gras Indians, family activities and a second line. The festival, as described by the AT&T Performing Arts Center, celebrates the cultural connections between Dallas and New Orleans while putting Hargrove's legacy front and center.
A Lineup Rooted in Hargrove's Hometown Roots
The day's schedule kicks off at 1 p.m. with the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts Jazz Band, a fitting opener since Hargrove himself learned his craft at that same school. At 2 p.m., Terence Bradford and Congo Square take the stage with New Orleans jazz, funk and Afro-Caribbean grooves, and the event is a partnership between the arts center and The New Orleans Original BuckShop.
Later in the afternoon, Thaddeus Ford and his band are set to perform tunes from Hard Groove, Hargrove's genre-bending 2003 album with the RH Factor. The festival wraps at 3:45 p.m. with a traditional New Orleans second line parade led by Grand Marshal Michelle N. Gibson, featuring the Big Easy Brass Band, the Wild Apache Black Mardi Gras Indians and the BuckShop Kidz.
Honoring a Hometown Trumpet Legend
Hargrove grew up in Dallas and attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, according to the Roy Hargrove Legacy biography. Wynton Marsalis helped launch Hargrove's career after hearing him play at Booker T. Washington in the mid-1980s, inviting the young trumpeter to perform onstage at Fort Worth's Caravan of Dreams later that week. Sources differ on the exact year of that fateful encounter: Marsalis has written that he first met Hargrove in 1986 at the school, while the Roy Hargrove Legacy bio places the meeting in 1987, describing Marsalis hearing a teenaged Hargrove at a Booker T. Washington clinic and inviting him to sit in on the Fort Worth gig that week.
By the turn of the millennium, Hargrove was working with neo-soul singers D'Angelo and Erykah Badu, helping spur new fusions of jazz, soul, hip-hop and R&B, according to The Guardian. Accounts also vary on how to categorize his 2003 Grammy win for Directions in Music: The Guardian describes it as a shared award for best jazz instrumental with Herbie Hancock and Michael Brecker, while the Roy Hargrove Legacy bio identifies the honor as best jazz instrumental album.
Community Tributes Carry On His Legacy
This year's procession will also honor the late Jerome “Big Duck” Smith, described by the AT&T Performing Arts Center as a New Orleans civil rights leader and community mentor. Dozens of local musicians are expected to pay tribute to Hargrove at the festival, which the arts center is hosting as its latest community music festival.
The West Dallas tribute follows a pattern of large-scale remembrances for Hargrove. A five-hour musical event celebrating his memory was held at Rose Theater in New York on Jan. 8, 2019, with about 200 musicians and a second-line march.
Brass & Jazz in the Park is free to attend, and organizers are encouraging attendees to RSVP at attpac.org/brassjazz.
