Common Ground is the first of five CDs that bass maestro
Rodney Whitaker intends to release in 2019 in acknowledgment of his fiftieth
birthday year. It’s his seventh album, and embodies the musical values that
Whitaker has projected on antecedent dates like When We Find Ourselves Alone,
from 2014; such turn-of-the-century gems as Winter Moon, Ballads and Blues: The Brooklyn Session and
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow; and the critically acclaimed Mack Avenue
recordings Get Ready (2007) and Work To Do (2011) by his co-led band with
drummer Carl Allen.
As on those recordings, Whitaker convenes an all-star unit
of generational contemporaries, each a modern master and colleague of long
standing (trumpeter Terrell Stafford, saxophonist Tim Warfield, pianist Bruce
Barth, and drummer Dana Hall). He guides the flow with a mammoth sound and
harmonic acumen, interpolating an occasional well-wrought solo, as his partners
apply their individualistic instrumental voices and “team-player” orientation
to eight tunes that Whitaker describes as “modern bebop and 21st century soul
jazz,” emphasizing melodic development and the will to swing.
That unified, collective sensibility is one layer of meaning
that filters into the title “Common Ground.” You can find another in the nature
of the relationship between Whitaker and the composer of the songs, which have
the flavor of new discoveries from the 1960s canons of Wayne Shorter, John
Coltrane and Eddie Harris. His name is Gregg Hill, 73, an autodidact who
started writing music seriously in 1984.
These unlikely collaborators live in East Lansing, Michigan,
near the campus of Michigan State University, where Whitaker — who is
University Distinguished Professor of Jazz Bass and Director of the Jazz
Studies program at MSU since 2000 — moved in 2006.
A native of Detroit, Whitaker began playing bass in junior
high school, where he met string instructor Donald Washington, whose student
group Bird/Trane/Sco/Now!, which spanned bebop to free jazz, shaped his broad
conception of musical expression. As he progressed through high school,
Whitaker participated in trumpeter Marcus Belgrave’s jazz group, performed
European classical music with the Detroit Civic Orchestra, studied privately with
members of the Detroit Symphony, and worked with Motor City luminaries like
pianist Kenny Cox and drummers Leonard King and Francesco Mora Catlett. A
devotee of Paul Chambers and Ron Carter from the jump, Whitaker also considers
Ray Brown, Oscar Pettiford, James Jamerson and Dave Holland to be crucial
influences on his style.
Whitaker left Detroit in 1988 with the Donald
Harrison-Terence Blanchard Quintet, then joined Roy Hargrove in 1991 for a
four-year run. During 1995 and 1996, when he freelanced with Elvin Jones, Kenny
Garrett and Diana Krall, Whitaker recorded his first two CDs, Children Of the
Light and Hidden Kingdom, both comprised primarily of original music. In 1996, Wynton Marsalis hired him to play
with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, where he remained until 2000.
“Working with Wynton was the closest I ever got to going to
graduate school,” Whitaker says. “I played so many different styles, and was
inspired to learn the history of the music in depth. It made me realize that
music is just not about notes. It’s about a story and it’s about lives.”
That storytelling ethos also informs Hill’s approach to
composition. A self-described “lifelong
jazz fan and follower” from Midland, Michigan, Hill played saxophone in his
high school band. He hoped to matriculate at Berklee, but couldn’t afford
tuition, so matriculated at MSU; in
1973, after consequential stays in New York and Detroit, he settled in East
Lansing for good. He drove a truck, got married, had a family, and invested
wisely. In 1984, he says, “my family life gave me some freedom to plunk at the
piano for a couple of hours every day, and I took the opportunity to start
writing.” He applied his analytical skills to absorb “every theory book I could
get my hands on,” and “used my ear to take me somewhere with the music, and to
get out my feelings and ideas — then it evolved, took on a life of its own.”
Around 2000, Hill tabled musical activities to involve
himself in a family-based technology company. As the decade progressed, he and
his wife, Lois Mummaw, founded a non-profit presenting organization called Jazz
Alliance of Mid-Michigan, and took positions on the board of the East Lansing
Summer Solstice Festival, which brought Whitaker into the fold as Music
Director in 2008. In 2015, Hill retired, freeing him to devote all his time to
musical self-expression.
Shortly before retirement, Hill assembled a composition book
with ten favorites. He gave Whitaker a copy. In 2017, he published 81 of his
tunes in two volumes, titled Outrospectives and Spontaneity (another 40 pieces
will appear in a yet-to-be-titled third volume, scheduled for winter 2019
publication). That summer, Hill decided to present a two-concert series for
which he asked seven bandleaders, including Whitaker, to perform his music.
About a year later, Whitaker approached Hill, suggesting
that he record his tunes with the personnel featured herein, who’d previously
performed on Hall’s excellent 2009 CD Into The Light. “We’ve all played
together in different configurations for 25-30 years, and I knew it would
immediately sound like a band,” Whitaker says. “I thought Gregg was writing
some cutting-edge things and also things that sound out of the tradition. All
of them were interesting and fun to play. Some of the tunes look easier than they
really are. Some remind me of the 1960s, but some remind me of now.”
For the Common Ground
project, Whitaker and Hill each chose material, which Whitaker then “rearranged
from the original source material, particularly the solo forms.” He told Hill that
“I wanted his heart and soul connected in it musically,” towards which end Hill
presented four numbers to vocalist Rockelle Fortin, the oldest of Whitaker’s
seven children, and asked her to write and sing original lyrics, based on
conversations in which she interrogated Hill on the content and meaning of each
tune.
“Bringing in Rockelle at a creative level and showcasing her
vocal talent is a highlight of the album,” Hill says. “Singers are my main
source of musical inspiration. A good sax or trumpet solo can make you feel
good, but only a singer can give you the goose-pimples where you’re overwhelmed
by feeling.”
On the sprightly title track, Fortin’s affirmative message
of mutual respect reflects Hill’s sense that “ordinary people tend to be
considerate of each other in the daily rounds of life,” in contrast to the
“acrimonious tone of the political world.” It also mirrors the common ground
that Whitaker and Hill have found through their interaction in the world of
jazz.
“Rodney’s genius was to put his own take on all these
arrangements,” Hill says. “That’s what makes them special. He’s a master
arranger and the heartbeat of the band. He frees up the soloist. That’s also in
line with philosophy of writing. I’m very oriented towards melodies, but I don’t
try to marry them to my changes. I write material that turns the soloist loose,
down their own territory. So this is a dream band for me, and even before this
project came along, Rodney was my favorite bass player.”
Whitaker also draws inspiration from his most recently
established partner. “It’s always been Gregg’s life dream to do this,” he says.
“So many times people just table their dream. You don’t want to do that. You’ve
got to keep pushing, and you’ve got to figure out the next thing in your journey.
You shouldn’t be afraid to go after your dream.”
