Brent White

Trombonist/composer, Brent White has facilitated jazz education at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center and advocated in community and cultural centers. On the international scene, he has played with the Sun Ra Arkestra and has accompanied John Legend. Presently though, he draws on these experiences in realizing a profoundly felt commitment to teach, to compose, and to lead. Professor White is Director of the Jazz Orchestra and Jazztet at Drexel University where he teaches music history and also works as Coordinator of Arts and Culture Hub at the University’s Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships. Brent’s educational philosophy originates in listening, especially to the people’s voices. At the heart of his approach to Jazz is performing in unity with family and community. His latest composition. Broken Toy (July 2021 CD), both hears and heals the untold losses that he has witnessed personally and historically. The CD chronicles the traumatic toll prisons take upon generations and provides “a suite of jazz children’s music dedicated to all those who suffered emotional damage caused by losing a father to incarceration (Broken Toy, CD Cover Note).” In that cause, Brent has heard the cries of children who have seen too much. Out of that vision, comes the impulse to mend what is broken in curative music. At the heart of Broken Toy is a child’s voice. The track titled, “I Fear,” samples Brent’s three-year-old daughter, Lorraine, repeating “Daddy, that’s you.” She announces the song’s call and response between her infant’s tiny timbre and her father’s bluesy trombone intonations. The trombone mimics little Lorraine’s sound and holds the emotional center. “That’s you,” she repeats, as the band wails a chorus dramatizing Broken Toy’s commitment to resonate in Bebop registers reminiscent of titans such as J.J. Johnson, Curtis Fuller and Grachan Moncur III. In Broken Toy, we encounter a Neo-bop creation that consoles the hurt and liberates the soul. At the Broken Toy CD release party (July 12, 2021), Brent’s wife, Lauren Putty White, collaborated with her husband by dancing across the stage to dramatize a child’s journey to visit a parent in prison. Together, Lauren and Brent testified to the poignancy of losing a parent to incarceration. Together, they have appealed to the communal power of the family, the jazz band, and the audience to create a safe space for children.

Photo Credit: Ola Baldych