Join us on the new Ronnie’s Stage on Sunday, February 16, 2025, at 3:30 PM for an unforgettable performance by Iva Jean Ambush and Ambuscade. Experience her soulful and heartfelt sounds in an intimate setting. Don’t miss this tribute!

The HarGroove Effect: The Legacy of Roy Hargrove

Building on the legacy of Roy Hargrove and his genre-blurring group, The RH Factor, Ambuscade brings an exhilarating fusion of jazz, funk, and soul we call “HarGroove.” We’re reviving the roots of swinging, danceable grooves with a modern edge. Embracing the bold, explorative spirit of Black American classical music—jazz—while adding rich improvisational depth, Ambuscade continues Hargrove’s tradition. This set will honor his groundbreaking creativity, welcoming new audiences while staying true to our ancestral roots.

About Iva Jean Ambush

Jazz Vocalist Iva Jean Ambush, the scat lady, is the recent winner of the coveted Billie Holiday Competition. She has performed at Birdland (NYC), the DC Jazz Festival, Keystone Korner – Baltimore, the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, Alice’s Jazz and Cultural Society, Blues Alley, Le Duc des Lombards, Bethesda Blues and Jazz Club, An die Musik, International Association of Jazz Educators Conferences, Frederick – In The Streets Festival, the Billy Strayhorn 100th Birthday Celebration, WPFW 89.3 Live @ 5, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Jazz  Night @Westminster DC, Amherst Fine Arts Center, Ritz Carlton Pentagon, Frederick’s Baker Park 4th of July Celebration (multiple years), the East Coast Jazz Festival, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and more. Iva enjoys exploring the concepts of jazz phrasing and rhythms with the help of jazz legends, Sheila Jordan, Dr. Horace Boyer, and Ronnie Wells. Some of her other influences include Dr. Frederick Tillis, Prof. Charles Ellison and the late Dr. Billy Taylor and Dr. Bro. Yusef Lateef.

She has a family full of Jazz Musicians which include on the maternal side, late trumpeter Lester Bowie, the late Byron Bowie (saxophonist/composer/arranger), Defunkt’s founder Joe Bowie, guitarist Jonathan Townes and on the paternal side, bassist Scott Ambush (Spyro Gyra [and Formerly with Stanley Turrentine]), and pianist Allen Ambush. There are a host of others too numerous to name.

Ms. Ambush is working on her next CD, I Am(bush) Jazz, which is a homage to her family with a Jazz fusion of Gospel, Funk and Soul. Through music written by the pioneers, Iva Jean Ambush, will demonstrate why the “Voice” remains the epitome of communication via syncopation —

Elevating the Instrument, the Language, the Conversation.