Bern
Roy Hargrove
Bern is a previously unissued live recording from Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Roy Hargrove, captured on May 4, 2000 at the International Jazzfestival Bern in Switzerland and released by Time Traveler Recordings on April 18, 2026 as a limited-edition 180-gram vinyl pressing of 3,000 copies for Record Store Day, followed by CD and digital versions on April 24. Produced by noted jazz archivist Zev Feldman and James Batsford — in partnership with Hargrove's estate and with his widow Aida Brandes-Hargrove serving as executive producer — the album was originally filmed and recorded by German public broadcaster 3sat and has been restored and remastered from the original tapes by engineer Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas. The five-track, roughly 78-minute set documents Hargrove at age 30, leading a fiercely simpatico quintet of pianist Larry Willis, bassist Gerald Cannon, drummer Willie Jones III, and alto saxophonist Sherman Irby — a band jazz journalist Nate Chinen, who contributed the album's liner notes, has called "one of the fiercest and finest bands of its era."
The five expansive tracks — "Stranded," "Depth," "Never Let Me Go," "Caryisms," and "Circus," each running between ten and sixteen minutes — move from hard-swinging post-bop to Latin-inflected grooves to breathtaking balladry, with Hargrove's trademark blend of brilliance, bite, warmth, and lyricism fully on display. AllMusic called it "a jazz fan's holy grail" that reveals "another dimension of Hargrove's unexaggerated genius," while All About Jazz described it as "the kind of archival find that reminds listeners how electrifying Roy Hargrove could be live," capturing him "in a moment of confident maturity, blending respect for tradition with the restless creativity that defined his career." Hargrove, who passed away in November 2018 at just 49 years old, followed in the lineage of Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, and Freddie Hubbard — and Bern stands as a powerful reminder of what was lost, and what endures.
Bern
Roy Hargrove
Bern is a previously unissued live recording from Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Roy Hargrove, captured on May 4, 2000 at the International Jazzfestival Bern in Switzerland and released by Time Traveler Recordings on April 18, 2026 as a limited-edition 180-gram vinyl pressing of 3,000 copies for Record Store Day, followed by CD and digital versions on April 24. Produced by noted jazz archivist Zev Feldman and James Batsford — in partnership with Hargrove's estate and with his widow Aida Brandes-Hargrove serving as executive producer — the album was originally filmed and recorded by German public broadcaster 3sat and has been restored and remastered from the original tapes by engineer Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas. The five-track, roughly 78-minute set documents Hargrove at age 30, leading a fiercely simpatico quintet of pianist Larry Willis, bassist Gerald Cannon, drummer Willie Jones III, and alto saxophonist Sherman Irby — a band jazz journalist Nate Chinen, who contributed the album's liner notes, has called "one of the fiercest and finest bands of its era."
The five expansive tracks — "Stranded," "Depth," "Never Let Me Go," "Caryisms," and "Circus," each running between ten and sixteen minutes — move from hard-swinging post-bop to Latin-inflected grooves to breathtaking balladry, with Hargrove's trademark blend of brilliance, bite, warmth, and lyricism fully on display. AllMusic called it "a jazz fan's holy grail" that reveals "another dimension of Hargrove's unexaggerated genius," while All About Jazz described it as "the kind of archival find that reminds listeners how electrifying Roy Hargrove could be live," capturing him "in a moment of confident maturity, blending respect for tradition with the restless creativity that defined his career." Hargrove, who passed away in November 2018 at just 49 years old, followed in the lineage of Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, and Freddie Hubbard — and Bern stands as a powerful reminder of what was lost, and what endures.