Is this Roy Hargrove 🎺 album the best jazz album of the 2000's?

Reader,

In my opinion, Earfood, from the Roy Hargrove Quintet, is one of the most important jazz albums to come out of the 2000's. While the tune we are featuring today, Strasbourg / St. Denis, is one of newest tunes to earn its place as a "Standard," the rest of the album doesn't get enough love. It's worth listening to from start to finish.

I believe Strasbourg / St. Denis is a reference to the Paris Metro station of the same name. Some have theorized that the call and response lines are symbolizing the busy in-and-out of trains into the station.

Join our workshop this Friday

This week I'll be teaching the first thing you should learn about comping with your left hand. We'll explore the 3 most vital comping patterns to learn, simple voicings, and exercises to really get in the pocket.

On Zoom at 1pm Eastern, this Friday, Nov 22.

Today's 2-5-1

Each week I share 2 transcribed phrases, 5 ideas observed from 1 featured jazz recording.

Here are 5 observations I have about this tune as a whole.

1. The call and response interplay I mentioned earlier starts at 0:55 between Roy and Justin. They play the same lines back at each other, but from different rhythmic starting points.
2. Boller (bass) and Coleman (drums) are so perfectly in the pocket. The groove is simple, but it's just so precise.
3. I love Clayton' (piano) use of hand-muted strings in his solo at 1:12. It adds a percussive effect which adds a great color on top of the groove set by Boller and Coleman.
4. The head is based on a 2-bar (3 chord) loop in the key of Bb min. Bbm - Cm - Dbmaj7. In the final 2-bars, it switches to a sweet Abmaj7 that moves to the dominant F7alt.
5. Some of the most interesting moments of each of the solos comes over that F7alt chord. I notated two of those above, but I welcome you to listen for these throughout the tune.