Sat 2/8 @ 7:30PM
Twenty-three-year-old jazz keyboard player Matthew Whitaker has been blind from birth, but that hasn’t stopped his already-flourishing music career. He began playing at 3, performed at Stevie Wonder’s Apollo Theatre Hall of Fame Induction at the age of ten, and later studied at the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. He released his first album, Outta the Box, in 2017 when he was just 16, and enlisted such players as sax player James Carter, bassist Christian McBride and percussionist Sammy Figueroa. Since then, he’s released three more albums, including last year’s On Their Shoulders; An Organ Tribute, paying homage to Hammond B3 players such as Jimmy Smith, Joey DeFrancesco, Twinkie Clark, Charles Earland and Dr. Lonnie Smith.
He’ll be performing material from that album at Tri-C Eastern campus in the Mandel Theatre this Saturday, but the event will be more than just a great performance by a talented young musician. The evening will open with the announcement of the lineup for the 46th annual Tri-C JazzFest coming back to Playhouse Square in June.
Get tickets here, hear a great young musician and be the first to hear the news about this year’s JazzFest.