Theo Croker’s “Escape Velocity” is a Game Changer
The music we call Jazz continues to push the boundaries
As you may have read, that Kamasi Washington album aptly titled, The Epic, has been my go to Jazz album. Prior to that, Christian Scott’s Christian Atunde Adjuah album carried me for damn near three years. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve bought several artist’s music since — many of them have had really good songs, songs that I return to often, but great albums are hard to come by.
And Jazz ain’t like Rap. I’m not going to see hashtags and reTweets about the latest Jeremy Pelt album. Teenagers aren’t competing to have the best Jazz blogs. And Jazz magazines…who are those even marketed to? We’re a long ways away from when Down Beat was the #1 music magazine fifty years ago. If you’re not looking for Jazz, it won’t just happen upon you like say… a DJ Esco mixtape.
Best I can do is follow artists that I’ve already supported. This is how I came across Escape Velocity. Saw it in May. Finally pulled the trigger. Immediately told as many people as I know because otherwise…see the last paragraph.
Jazz artists continue to do what few artists in other genres rarely attempt…expand and try something different. If you follow an artist, it’s exciting to track their growth from album to album. With Escape Velocity, it looks like Theo Croker has hit his stride.
note: this is as close to a music review as I will ever get
The struggle is real.
When I first started educating myself on Jazz, I had to hone in on one particular style but I didn’t have any idea what I was looking for. Now that I do, finding the “right” sound has become searching-for-the-first-high like obsessive.
Growing up in the 80s, I was inundated with Fusion…and worst, “Smooth Jazz.” And, as I’ve written about before, this is where the music of Wynton Marsalis gave me an introduction to Bop, which was buttressed by WCLK’s playlist.
I learned about young Dizzy Gillepsie and Charlie Parker’s innovations, was fascinated by Art Blakey and his great ability to nurture talent. I followed a line of trumpeters from Fats Navarro and Clifford Brown to Freddie Hubbard and the tragic death of “The Sidewinder,” Lee Morgan.
Reading about this tradition, listening to the music, made me have a certain disdain for Fusion. My cut off for “older” Jazz was 1969 and like many people of my generation, what I looked at as Jazz started with Wynton Marsalis.
There was Wynton Marsalis on the cover of Time Magazine in October of 1990, my freshman year. There was talk of Wynton Marsalis as the savior of “straight ahead” Jazz. There was more coverage of Wynton Marsalis, thanks to Columbia Records and publicist Marilyn Laverty, than any other Jazz artist.
And Wynton Marsalis’ defense of the tradition of Jazz is legendary and isn’t just about the music. Wynton Marsalis maintains a tailored suit, sharp and polished look. He gives off the air of what a true Jazz musician should be like.
When it comes to the music, Wynton Marsalis has always been a strident critic of pop music and more importantly, the relationship between Jazz and Pop. (I still remember “the controversy” when Wynton’s older brother, Branford, went on tour with Sting) Wynton Marsalis was of the belief that when Jazz and Pop mixed, Jazz suffered.
I bought what Wynton Marsalis was selling hook line and sinker thus turning up my nose at most of the Jazz-Rap hybrids of the 90s and anyone who dared not dignify themselves with a suit. And this carried on until I read Miles Davis Autobiography.
Yes, the stories that Miles Davis tells are great. Yes, he talks a lot of shit…a lot…a lot. But most importantly he talks about his music.
It was in my reading of this book that made me realize that the Jazz that resonated with me wasn’t so much Bop but the hard to explain (for a non-musician) Modal Jazz that Miles Davis championed early on with Kinda Blue.
Miles Davis never felt afraid to chuck an old style (or band) and after witnessing Jimi Hendrix and all that was taking place in the late 60s, Miles Davis recorded the increasingly controversial, much talked about and debated Bitches’ Brew, the album that ushered in the maligned Fusion that I mentioned above.
If I haven’t learned anything in my short time on this planet, I’ve learned that “purist” and often what they espouse, becomes stale to me real quick.
And that’s not a knock. Some people enjoy the rehashing of traditions or bygone eras. But for me, if I want to listen to 90s rap, I’ll listen to 90s rap. Similarly, if I want to listen to standards and classic bop, I’m going to the originators. Over the years, listening to much of Jazz simply felt like the 50s on repeat.
I believe that all musicians should know the standards…no doubt…but they should play them in college and not put them on record…unless they do it like Robert Glasper.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a lover of Radiohead, a Radiohead obsessive. I had a period where I would type “Orchestra covers Radiohead” or “Radiohead Jazz covers” into YouTube search. Of course, there’s a bazillion really amateur…be nice sdq…versions posted, but thankfully YouTube’s search engine lead me to something great.
The first time I heard Glasper’s “Maiden Voyage/Everything In It’s Right Place,” adjectives escape me for the type of elation that I experienced. Glasper seamlessly blended Herbie Hancock’s classic with the Kid A opening track to the point where it seemed that the two songs belonged together.
This was around 08. I became a fan and was already on board when the Black Radio bandwagon picked up tons of passengers a few years later.
My love of Radiohead and search for Jazz covers of their songs is also what lead me to Christian aTunde Adjuah né Christian Scott.
First few minutes of “The Eraser” cover were ok. “Sounds like the record,” I thought. I listened on because, frankly, it didn’t bother me — not because I was impressed — until around the 3:40 second spot.
ATunde Adjuah pulls out the stops here and for the next minute in a half takes that whisper sound that he’s known for up a notch. And, being a fan of the trumpet, that’s exactly what I needed to hear.
Went to iTunes. Searched his name. The album Yesterday You Told Me Tomorrow came up. Clicked on purchase. Another Jazz artist added on to the cipher.
Couple years passed, and I wasn’t even suspecting a new album from ATunde Adjuah when my brother Isma’il Latif insisted that I get his latest.
“He has a new album?”
“Just get it.”
Went to iTunes. Searched his name. The album Christian aTunde Adjuah came up. Clicked on purchase. Another Jazz album added on to the cipher…but this was no regular Jazz album.
Not even close. First off, it’s a double album and up to that moment that was the reserved space for someone like Wynton Marsalis, a supposed tried and true artist. Second of all, it was clearly the work of an artist who was not afraid.
Most jazz musicians, they’re funny. If they have a phrase that’s in nine [beats per measure], they’ll change it to four. If they hear electric guitar as a texture, they’ll change it to a piano part. . . . I’m not willing to do that. If I hear it a certain way, that’s the way it’s going to be. Christian ATunde Adjuah
No suits. No compromise. Atunde Adjuah did not (and does not) care about the opinions of the establishment. And he’s got the credentials to take that stance, being from New Orleans and all, from a family of the famed Black Indians of Mardi Gras. Not to mention, he knows the history of the music.
Although I bought Jazz albums after Christian aTunde Adjuah, it was my go to, my fallback, and, according to iTunes, many of those songs have been listened to at least 60 times.
Next time that would happen would be with The Epic. But we already know about my love for Kamasi Washington’s album and he’s broken out of the ghetto of “Jazz,” and made it into mainstream press, playing festivals beyond the typical Jazz fests, and gaining fans who otherwise would never venture into the genre.
I’m sure Kamasi Washington’s album could have remained the solo go to jawn had I not heard Escape Velocity…but I did…
Escape velocity is a physics term. It’s the minimum speed an object has to travel to escape the gravitational pull of a larger object. If that larger object that Theo Croker is referring to is his past place in the music world, then this album definitely will escape that gravitational pull and head out into the outer reaches of popularity.
I copped AfroPhysicist when it first came out, liked a few songs, and earmarked Croker as an artist I would check for. Despite missing the EP, Dvrk Funk, released in October of 2015, I caught wind of a new album release back around March.
As I mentioned before, I actually listen to albums, so I had a backlog of artists’ music that kept me from listening to Escape Velocity upon it’s release in May but I made my way to it recently and within the first few seconds, I knew…
First thing I did was take a screenshot of the album and sent it to my Whatsapp group, The Tribe, a group composed of young lions, all New Yorkers, mostly 30 and under.
“This theo croker tho…this might be up my alley — we ll see..”
A comment that was drowned out in talks of Philly rappers and how they never capitalized off of their early 2000s dominance.
“yeah, this jawn is hard…”
…I commented after ten seconds of “This Could Be.” That killer Eric Wheeler bass line reminded me of something that I would have rushed to sample back in the mid 90s when I thought that I could have been a producer.
When Kassa Overall’s drums came in at the twenty second mark, my immediate thoughts were, “No way can this album get better after this.”
And it does.
By the time I got to “We Can’t Breathe” I didn’t want the album to end…and right after that comes “It’s Gonna Be Alright.” Damn.
“We Can’t Breathe,” That’s about Eric Garner. That’s about Trayvon. That’s about reflecting everything that is going on in the world, but ‘It’s Gonna Be Alright’ is the response to that. No matter what we deal with, remember it’s going to be alright.” Theo Croker
Theo Croker and co-producer Kassa Overall constructed the album over a year, reworking songs (“In Orbit” has many other incarnations and is a shortened version of its original eight minute self), sampling themselves, overdubbing, and taking their time at that.
Unlike most rap (and Jazz) albums, Escape Velocity goes by so quickly. “Changes” signals the end…and you can tell it’s the end because Michael King’s organ playing is so intense, one could picture a Baptist preacher Holy Ghost dancing up and down the aisles. And Croker goes all out with his wah wah pedal solos, sounding like Hendrix just took up the trumpet.
I felt like screaming for an encore when the closing song “Rahspect” came on. If anyone could have had a double or triple album, Theo Croker and his Dvrk Funk band qualify. In fact, that’s my only complaint. I want more.
I never read reviews before seeing a movie or listening to an album for fear of the critics’ words coloring my opinion. But I did balk at iTunes metadata description comparing this album to Pharoah Sanders’ “spiritual jazz.”
Then I read the reviews. Laughable. One critic pulled the whole divide and conquer tactic saying that while artist are bringing people to Jazz by playing Jazz hybrids, Croker is doing it by “just playing Jazz.” What the hell does that mean?
By definition, the music we call Jazz, if nothing else, is a hybrid. Those original artists played in the church, came out of the Blues tradition, and would be the foundation of the music we now call Rock & Roll. So…please.
Escape Velocity is extremely soulful, swings, and that BASS…listen, my main reason for referring it to my young lions is because I know if they rock this in their cars, that Bass is going to rattle their trunks. Dark Funk, indeed.
Maybe that’s why one silly reviewer compared the album to “Return of the Mack.” No, seriously, I can’t make this stuff up.
All I know is, this is the type of music that Black people who may have never listened to Jazz before will enjoy. It’s completely accessible. And would be a great addition to a modern Jazz starter kit.
In a time where most of our mainstream music is focused on staying the same or similar, making sure they focus on that bottom line, there are many musicians who are playing what people call Jazz that are doing anything but (that). What separates this music from it’s intended audience…aside from the corporate business structure that only allows ten songs to be played at any given time in any given market, is the silly categories.
These categories bring out the natural discrimination in a person. “Oh, no…I don’t listen to Jazz.” Which is why it’s easy to see why Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler (members of the Black Arts Movement)…and my brother Wakeel Allah, just want to throw out all those damn titles and just call it what it is…Black Music.
In the liner notes’ Thank yous, Croker says, “This one will put us over the top.” I certainly hope so. Download Escape Velocity, I promise, you will not be disappointed.
Let us first eliminate the term, ‘jazz.’ It is not a term or name that we, Black musicians, ever gave to the art which we created. It is a name which was given to the Afro-American’s art form by white America, with and which therefore inherits all the racist and purient attitudes which have been directed to all other aspects of the Black experience in this country. Max Roach, The Black Scholar, Summer 1972
