Here we go: "Roy Allan" is the first track of Royalty for Real (to be released on February 16th, 2024). Feel free to like and share!
So here I was, in February 2022, recording with a couple of my very favourite musicians... It's a beautiful composition by Roy Hargrove, dedicated to his father and it was released on his album Family in 1995.
Why did I choose this tune? Let me try to describe. I heard it many times in concert. It was not only Roy Hargrove himself who played beautifully but also his band. A couple of musicians of his band I probably heard the most thoughout the years are Gregory Hutchinson, Karriem Riggins, Dwayne Burno, Stephen Scott, Ron Blake, and later Sherman Irby, Larry Willis, Gerald Cannon and Willie Jones III, playing this great mix between hardbop, modal jazz and always keeping it soulful.
In musical terms: Roy Allan is all about the minor 6th chord, and in the bridge we get shortly into modal, to return, with a hinch of soul, back to the minor 6th chords. To me it is fascinating, how short the tune is, like a poem, yet having this endless quality that makes it sounds like a vibe you want to stay in, without wasting a lot of notes. If you know me well you know I love it when notes aren't wasted... The use of the minor 6th chord sounds a bit melancholic but also warm, and then the modal chords lift it up and when going back, the turnaround at the end of the bridge makes the following minor 6th chords a bit more light, cheering up...
I managed to record with Cannon and Jones III, Hargrove's rhythm section for many years, together with another Hargrove contemporary: James Hurt on piano. Hurt and Hargrove were around in New York at the same time, both active on the live scene. And there's another connection: Sherman Irby, James Hurt and Gerald Cannon played together a lot, and of course Cannon and Jones III still playing together a lot for more than 25 years... So glad I met these gentlemen in the 90's and we made this project work out.
What do you see in the video? Can you guess the locations where we filmed?
This is the title track called Dark Horse. Just as in the album version it features sax and piano solos. It's a pretty wild performance, matching today's start of the Chinese New Year: THE YEAR OF THE FIRE HORSE!Live at Bimhuis, we added a drum solo. Afterwards, I decided to seperate it from the song and post it as an extra video below. Why not in one video?Because the video would become very very long and experience shows that people will not stick around for longer that 6-7 minutes. Yoràn's free drum solo is actually really great and in this seperate video, the true drum lovers can watch and learn from his drum story telling. Sometimes people ask me; What are drummers doing in their solos? To give you an idea of what Yoràn is doing in his solo: He starts with a pattern, an idea. He keeps the pattern going and plays variations over it. Then he combines it with soloing over it with call and reponse phrases and slides in new patterns. Technically it's interesting because he demonstrates a lot of independence and speed, as well as dynamics and sound colours, while telling a story, which means in musical context that the solo has certain elements which can be recognized by the (trained) listener. Many people in the Western part of the world miss the melodic and harmonic context during a free drum solo. It's fair to say a free drum solo without any accompaniment is like an abstract painting. Within the given context you can hear and see what you can manage, depending on your own frame of reference and expectations. In the end, it's about: does it resonate with you? Because both, the painting and the free drum solo, they lack a clear subject (no lyrics, no recognizable image), both forms are highly subjective and open to the interpretation of the audience. They function as a conversation between the artist's feeling and the viewer's/listener's perception.But you also can listen to it with a pure analytical drum ear and try to follow the patterns and phrases. As a musician and human I (try to) do both :-) Enjoy!More info:Susanne Alt: sax, Matthijs Geerts and Ike van Bergen: keys, Thomas Pol: bass, Yoràn Vroom: drums, Helene Jank: percussion Performed at 16th of January 2026 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Recorded by Onno Prillwitz Filmed by Robert Glass and Albert Nooij. - Here we go: Roy Allan is the first track of Royalty for Real (to be released on February 16th, 2024). Feel free to like and share!So here I was, in February 2022, recording with a couple of my very favourite musicians...It's a beautiful composition by Roy Hargrove, dedicated to his father and it was released on his album Family in 1995.Why did I choose this tune?Let me try to describe. I heard it many times in concert. It was not only Roy Hargrove himself who played beautifully but also his band. A couple of musicians of his band I probably heard the most thoughout the years are Gregory Hutchinson, Karriem Riggins, Dwayne Burno, Stephen Scott, Ron Blake, and later Sherman Irby, Larry Willis, Gerald Cannon and Willie Jones III, playing this great mix between hardbop, modal jazz and always keeping it soulful.In musical terms: Roy Allan is all about the minor 6th chord, and in the bridge we get shortly into modal, to return, with a hinch of soul, back to the minor 6th chords. To me it is fascinating, how short the tune is, like a poem, yet having this endless quality that makes it sounds like a vibe you want to stay in, without wasting a lot of notes. If you know me well you know I love it when notes aren't wasted... The use of the minor 6th chord sounds a bit melancholic but also warm, and then the modal chords lift it up and when going back, the turnaround at the end of the bridge makes the following minor 6th chords a bit more light, cheering up...I managed to record with Cannon and Jones III, Hargrove's rhythm section for many years, together with another Hargrove contemporary: James Hurt on piano. Hurt and Hargrove were around in New York at the same time, both active on the live scene. And there's another connection: Sherman Irby, James Hurt and Gerald Cannon played together a lot, and of course Cannon and Jones III still playing together a lot for more than 25 years... So glad I met these gentlemen in the 90's and we made this project work out. What do you see in the video?Can you guess the locations where we filmed?
