Approaching Standards is a compilation album by trumpeter Roy Hargrove, with tracks taken from four sessions between December 1989 to February 1993, released on the Novus/RCA/BMG labels in 1994.
Don Cross of AllMusic described the album as "A poorly put-together compilation" and that "Approaching Standards serves only to illuminate Hargrove's failure to understand ballad material on his earlier recordings. Ballads dominate the album, accounting for seven of the album's ten tracks; Hargrove generally interprets them in a cool, emotionally detached manner which can be quite off-putting." However, Cross noted that the album "somewhat more encouragingly also documents Hargrove's growth as a musician" with Everything I Have Is Yours / Dedicated to You'... find[ing] Hargrove in a more mature frame of mind, and point[ing] toward the much better albums he would soon make."
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