Award-winning trumpeter, vocalist, songwriter, and producer Keyon Harrold is touring in support of Grammy-nominated recording, 2024’s Foreverland. This crossover album features a bevy of collaborators. These include British R&B vocalist Laura Mvula, emerging young singer Malaya, Common, Robert Glasper and PJ Morton.
Harrold first came into the international spotlight as the trumpet voice behind the Grammy-winning Don Cheadle film Miles Ahead. As a bandleader, he creates a compelling new statement with a riveting mix of jazz, Afrobeat, soul, spoken word, hip-hop, blues, rock, and American folk. Additionally, as a soloist, his distinctly warm trumpet sound simmers in the middle register. Here, he creates drama without aggrandizing, and mesmerizes live audiences with an emotionally charged concert presentation. Wynton Marsalis has stated “Keyon Harrold is the future of the trumpet”.
In addition to being one of the leading voices in jazz, Harrold has collaborated with many hip-hop and pop artists. For example, Snoop Dogg, Jay Z, Beyonce, Rihanna, Eminem, Maxwell, and Anthony Hamilton. Also, rock legends Keith Richards and Jeff Beck. These experiences broadened his musical horizons beyond jazz to include funk, Afrobeat, R&B, rock and roll, and hip hop.
He is currently touring an ensemble that is making one of the strongest artistic statements of any musical group today. While rooted in jazz music, the band freestyles and solos with authority and weaves the spectrum of African American music. Thus, they create a sonic expression that can best be described as bop pop hip-hop jazz!
Recommended for fans of Robert Glasper, Roy Hargrove, Marquis Hill and Theo Croker.
📸: Kwafu Alston
