Roy Anthony Hargrove, born on Oct. 16, 1969, in Waco, Texas, to Roy Allan and Jacklyn Hargrove, was an incisive trumpeter who embodied the brightest promise of his jazz generation, both as a young steward of the bebop tradition and a savvy bridge to hip-hop and R&B.

A briskly assertive soloist with a tone that could evoke either burnished steel or a soft, golden glow, Hargrove was a galvanizing presence in jazz over the last 30 years. Dapper and slight of build, he exuded a sly, sparkling charisma onstage, whether he was holding court at a late-night jam session or performing in the grandest concert hall. His capacity for combustion and bravura was equaled by his commitment to lyricism, especially when finessing a ballad on flugelhorn.

Hargrove is also known for his vital presence in the turn-of-the-century movement known as neo-soul. He made crucial contributions to Voodoo, the epochal album by D'Angelo, released in 2000. He appeared the same year on Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun and Common's Like Water for Chocolate, and later formed his own hybrid project, The RH Factor, with the aim of furthering the dialogue between modern jazz, hip-hop and R&B. But Hargrove always maintained his foothold in the mainstream jazz tradition; he saw his forays into other forms of black music as an extension of, rather than any departure from, that tradition. 

He first emerged in the late 1980s, at a cultural moment when his precocity and poise amounted to a form of currency in jazz. His first album, Diamond in the Rough, was released on the Novus imprint of RCA in 1990. Soon afterward, he went on tour with a package called Jazz Futures, featuring a peer group of other young torchbearers, including alto saxophonist Antonio Hart and bassist Christian McBride.