With one foot firmly planted in jazz and the other in hip-hop and R&B, trumpeter Keyon Harrold has thrived by effortlessly navigating the kindred musical currents. Compared to Freddie Hubbard by DownBeat and hailed as “the future of the trumpet” by Wynton Marsalis, Harrold landed his first professional horn gig with the rapper Common (an audition for which his New School classmate Robert Glasper provided a recommendation).
Mentored by trumpeter Charles Tolliver, Harrold contributed to the post-bop master’s 2006 album With Love (Blue Note). Since then he’s established himself as an improviser, vocalist, songwriter, producer, and studio ace via his work on recordings by the likes of Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Gregory Porter, and Maxwell. His old friend Glasper recruited him to supply the trumpet work in Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead. He weaves together all of these experiences on his second album as a leader, 2017’s The Mugician (Legacy Recordings), a politically charged project deeply marked by the 2014 unrest in his hometown, Ferguson, Missouri. Sweeping and cinematic, the music embraces jazz, classical, rock, blues, and hip-hop, creating a singular new sound galvanized by the searing force of Harrold’s horn.