Visualize. Dream. Manifest.
By Stephanie Jones
On a Sunday night at Smoke Jazz Club in New York City, Theo Croker shared songs from his June release Dream Manifest (Dom Recs). A meditation on what can coexist, Croker’s eighth leader album experiments with acoustic, electric and digital layers. On deep grooves, serenity and tension form covalent bonds. Beautiful, dreamlike melodies collide with grounding pads and gritty rubs. He talks about it all in his first DB cover feature.
By Allen Morrison
By Jay Sweet
By Terry Perkins, Yoshi Kato, Sue Mahal
At 56, Rodney Whitaker, professor of jazz bass and director of jazz studies at Michigan State University, is equally distinguished in his parallel careers as educator and performer. A son of Detroit, Whitaker’s performance c.v. includes consequential tenures with Roy Hargrove (1991-1995) and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (1996-2004) and 13 leader albums, most recently Mosaic: The Music Of Gregg Hill (Origin). This is Whitaker’s first Blindfold Test.
