Yesterday would have been Roy Hargrove's 50th birthday. He died last November. I blogged about his passing here. His passing hit me harder than most of the celebrities, artists or musicians you read about in the news. He was only three years older than me and he came to prominence while I was just starting college. I was playing trumpet in the jazz program at Southern Nazarene University and he was one of my trumpet idols. But he was different than most of my jazz heroes because he was so much closer to my age. Unfortunately I never got to see him play live.
So this morning I went to YouTube to watch one of my favorite live performances by The Roy Hargrove Quintet. His show at the New Morning Cafe in Paris, France was legendary. He played there many times but this appearance was back in 2010 before his health problems began to slow him down a bit. Unfortunately I was shocked to find that the video no longer exists on YouTube. It has been removed due to some copyright disagreement. The DVD of this concert is hard to find and the cheapest I could find a copy was $46. I knew I should have burned that YouTube performance before it was removed. Nothing good on YouTube sticks around forever.
So, hopefully it will come back up someday. The world needs this kind of musical inspiration more than ever.
