The Roy Hargrove Big Band Presents Love Suite: In Mahogany

Album art courtesy of Blue Engine Records.

For this month’s regular residency at The Jazz Gallery, The Roy Hargrove Big Band will make a special presentation of Hargrove’s epic composition, Love Suite: In Mahogany. The piece was one of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s earliest commissions and premiered at Alice Tully Hall in 1993 with a septet of Hargrove’s peers. The piece showed the 23-year-old Hargrove in an ambitious mode, with pungent harmonies and tight rhythm section arranging launching the band’s improvisations.

The piece was never recorded in the studio, and never even fully notated. Hargrove famously taught sections of the piece to his big band aurally, giving a select few audiences a taste of this special piece.

Thankfully, the music of Love Suite: In Mahogany is seeing more of the light of day, no longer a forgotten classic. This past October, JaLC’s in-house label Blue Engine released the original live recording on CD on streaming services.

Saxophonist Ron Blake—one of the band members of the time wrote this when listening back to the release:

Listening… took me back to the excitement of those days, on tour for the first time, and performing great music with amazing musicians. We were a band. We had fun, worked hard, dealt with the challenges of the road, and supported each other on and off the bandstand. But as much as I enjoyed the recording, the performances, etc., it was great to hear [Roy’s] voice again announcing from the stage, and sounding so strong on his horn.

Now, members of the Hargrove big band have reconstructed Love Suite for full big band forces and will perform the work in entirety at The Jazz Gallery on Thursday, June 6, for the first time since its 1993 premiere.

The Roy Hargrove Big Band performs Love Suite: In Mahogany at The Jazz Gallery on Thursday, June 6, 2024. The group features Nathan Eklund, Freddie Hendrix, Camerahn Alforque, Wayne Tucker, and Duane Eubanks on trumpets; Jason Jackson, Robert Edwards., Nate Jones, and Max Seigel on trombones; Bruce Williams, Mark Gross, Mike Lee, Keith Loftis, and Jason Marshall on reeds; Brandon McCune on piano; Saul Rubin on guitar; Danton Boller on bass; and Willie Jones on drums. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 P.M. E.D.T. $40 general admission ($20 for members, $10 for student members), $50 reserved cabaret seating ($35 for members), $20 livestream access ($5 for members) for each set. Purchase tickets here.