Rodney Whitaker

And before that, you heard music from Mr. Roy Hargrove, music from the Roy Hargrove Quintet from a CD entitled With the Tenors of Our Time.

The name of the cut is entitled "When We Were One." And Roy Hargrove on trumpet, Ron Blake on tenor sax, Cyrus Chestnut piano, Rodney Whitaker bass, Gregory Hutchinson on drums.

Now Roy Hargrove, this guy, he dabbled in jazz, hip hop, and Latin music.

I saw this guy perform at the Sheldon.

Yes.

And he heard me like sight reading like A Night in Tunisia or Donna Lee or something like that, and then he was like, "Oh, shoot, you, you, you like jazz? You play jazz?" And I was like, "No, I'm just reading this." He was like, "Oh, well, you should come to this thing anyway." He, uh, there was this after school program that he was about to take Cassan to, uh, that Rodney Whitaker ran and, um-

Oh, wow, nice.

Yeah, yeah, Rodney, um, in addition to being in charge of the program at Michigan State University, he would do ... two youth jazz programs in Detroit.

But I mean, I, I, I did that from, like, the eighth grade until, like, maybe the, the 11th grade, something like that.

Okay.

And by that point, I mean, um, through him, you know, and, and through Rodney Whitaker, I had started to meet a lot of people in the scene, and I, I was already playing and, and gigging a lot in, in high school.

I also did the, the Grammy Band thing.

He studied with Bess Bonior and Marcus Belgrave, and joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Civic Jazz program.

He went on to join the jazz program at Michigan State University, studying with Rodney Whitaker, Diego Rivera, and Rick Rowe, all Adult Music favorites, among others.

He relocated to Los Angeles for almost a decade, performing, composing, and recording, and during that time, he led a trio regularly and released his first two albums, Feelin' Better and Leaving Los Angeles, and he moved to Chicago in 2019.

In episode 102, Master Keys, from February of 2023, we discussed Christopher's previous trio recording, Solemn Moments.

Um, and you get to meet us and the artists, and it would be really cool.

It seems like, uh, uh, Rodney, Rodney Whitaker, who leads the jazz program up there at Michigan State, WJR is the station of Michigan State.

You and I-

Yeah

And it's a fine lineup.

Roy Hargrove on trumpet, Antonio Hart on alto saxophone, Mark Carey on piano, Rodney Whitaker on bass, and Greg Hutchinson on drums.

We're going to hear his version of Miles Davis' Milestones.

Milestones Thank you.

And this is a great album of John Coltrane covers from Kenny Garrett.

The name of the album is Pursuance, the music of John Coltrane.

featuring Kenny Garrett on alto saxophone, Pat Metheny on electric guitar, Rodney Whitaker on bass, and Brian Blade on drums.

And that track is certainly a great canvas for Pat Metheny's electric guitar work on Lonnie's Lament.

And then it's, it's just you with the house bassist and drummer, who were fantastic.

The great drummer Carl Allen and wonderful bassist Rodney Whitaker, and they play with all the pianists separately with, you know, each pianist comes out and does their, their numbers.

A few songs.

Do you decide which number you're gonna play?

...

Rodney Whitaker on the bass.

[upbeat music][jazz music] I mean, this whole era of the, the early '90s and Roy Hargrove, no one's doing straight-ahead better than him at this point.

I know.