The former Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra bassist,  a prolific leader and now also a distinguished professor and director of jazz studies at Michigan State University, here with alto saxophonist Antonio Hart who plays soprano on the album as well, jaunty and engaged on opener ‘The World Falls Away’, pianist Bruce Barth, who Whitaker had worked with in Terence Blanchard’s band in the late-1980s and early-90s, and drummer Gregory Hutchinson plus Whitaker’s daughter vocalist Rockelle Fortin joining the instrumentalists on selected songs. It’s Whitaker’s eighth album under his own name (last year also saw the release of the critically acclaimed WomanChild he was a sideman on). Driving bop with a swinging momentum in the Ray Brown tradition the material includes originals by Whitaker, plus standards ‘Autumn Leaves’, ‘Invitation’, and ‘You Go To My Head’, the Oscar Brown/Max Roach song ‘Freedom Day’, and Ralph MacDonald’s ‘Mr Magic’ synonymous in jazz with Grover Washington. Rockelle Fortin sings the Fred Hammond gospel song ‘Lost in You Again’ to draw the album to a close. SG
Released on 18 August

Rodney Whitaker, above. Photo: Cybelle Codish