Kirk Whalum
Encyclopedia
Kirk Whalum is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 smooth jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 saxophonist and songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

. He toured as Whitney Houston's opening act for several years. Whalum has also recorded a series of well received solo albums and film soundtracks, with music ranging from pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 to R&B to smooth jazz
Smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of jazz fusion and is influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles ....

. Kirk’s musical accomplishments have brought him a total of 12 Grammy nominations.

Kirk won his first Grammy award in 2011 for Best Gospel Song (“It’s What I Do”-featuring Lalah Hathaway
Lalah Hathaway
Eulaulah Donyll Hathaway best known as Lalah Hathaway referred to as the First Daughter of Soul, is a contemporary R&B and jazz singer. She is the daughter of soul singer Donny Hathaway and a classically trained vocalist. In 1990, Lalah Hathaway released a self-titled album. The album's first...

) alongside life-long friend and gifted writer, Jerry Peters.

Biography

Kirk Whalum born July 11, 1958 in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, was surrounded by music as he grew up in the R&B capital of the South. Kirk attended Melrose High School and Texas Southern University
Texas Southern University
Texas Southern University is a historically black university located in Houston, Texas, United States....

 where he was a member of the World Famous Ocean of Soul
Ocean of Soul
The Ocean of Soul, also known as the The Ocean, is the marching band of the Texas Southern University, and is currently under the direction of Richard F. Lee, Darryl Singleton and Clarence K. Gipson.-History:...

 Marching Band. In addition to singing in his father's church choir, Whalum also learned to love music from his grandmother, Thelma Twigg Whalum, a piano teacher, and two uncles, Wendell Whalum and Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum, who performed with jazz bands around the country. These influences proved lasting, as he told John H. Johnson
John H. Johnson
John Harold Johnson was an American businessman and publisher. He was the founder of the Johnson Publishing Company. In 1982 he became the first African-American to appear on the Forbes 400.ÀčĐċĎ- Biography :...

's magazine "Ebony Man" in a 1994 profile, "The music I like to play and write encompasses the four elements I grew up with: Memphis R&B, gospel, rock, and jazz. The emphasis, though, is on melody, period."

In 1986, he performed at Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and...

's giant concerts Rendez-Vous Houston
Rendez-vous Houston
Rendez-vous Houston: A City in Concert was a live performance by musician Jean Michel Jarre amidst the skyscrapers of downtown Houston on the evening of April 5, 1986, coinciding with the release of the Rendez-Vous album...

 and Rendez-Vous Lyon. At each concert, he performed the track Last Rendez-Vous, AKA Ron's Piece in place of Jarre and Whalum's mutual friend, saxophonist and astronaut Ron McNair, who died in the Challenger disaster. As part of the Challenger mission, McNair was due to perform the piece live from space as part of the Houston concert.

The '90s also brought Whalum an amazingly diverse series of session and touring jobs, working with artists like Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston is an American singer, actress, producer and a former model. Houston is the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records, and her list of awards include 1 Emmy Award, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among...

, Willie Norwood
Willie Norwood
William Raymond Norwood, Sr. known as Willie Norwood is an American Gospel singer and has been involved in singing since early childhood. His father and mother sang in the church choir...

, Babyface, Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson (singer)
Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist...

, Yolanda Adams
Yolanda Adams
Yolanda Adams is an American Grammy- and Dove-award-winning Yolanda Adams is an American [[Grammy Awards|Grammy]]- and [[Dove Awards|Dove]]-award-winning...

, Take 6
Take 6
Take 6 is an American a cappella gospel music sextet formed in 1980 on the campus of Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. The group sings in a contemporary style, integrating R&B and jazz influences into their devotional songs and has 10 Grammy wins, 10 Dove Awards, one Soul Train Award and two...

, BeBe & CeCe Winans
BeBe & CeCe Winans
BeBe & CeCe Winans are an American Gospel music brother and sister duo. BeBe and CeCe Winans are the seventh and eighth of "Mom" and "Pop" Winans' ten children, most of whom have had successful Gospel music careers.-Musical career:...

, Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

, Kirk Franklin
Kirk Franklin
Kirk Dwayne Franklin is an American Gospel music musician, choir director, and author, and is most notably known for leading urban contemporary gospel choirs such as The Family, God's Property and One Nation Crew .- Early years :...

, Edwin Hawkins
Edwin Hawkins
Edwin Hawkins is a Grammy Award-winning American gospel and R&B musician, pianist, choir master, composer and arranger. He is one of the originators of the urban contemporary gospel sound. He are best known for his arrangement of "Oh Happy Day" , which was included on the Songs of the Century list...

, Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...

, Kevin Mahogany
Kevin Mahogany
Kevin Mahogany is an American jazz vocalist who became prominent in the 1990s. He is known for his scat singing, and his singing style has been compared with jazz singers Joe Williams and Johnny Hartman....

, Al Green
Al Green
Albert Greene , better known as Al Green, is an American gospel and soul music singer. He reached the peak of his popularity in the 1970s, with hit singles such as "You Oughta Be With Me", "I'm Still In Love With You", "Love and Happiness", and "Let's Stay Together"...

, and Luther Vandross
Luther Vandross
Luther Ronzoni Vandross was an American singer-songwriter and record producer. During his career, Vandross sold over twenty-five million albums and won eight Grammy Awards including Best Male R&B Vocal Performance four times...

. He also has worked on a number of film scores, including those for The Prince of Tides
The Prince of Tides
The Prince of Tides is a 1991 romantic drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Pat Conroy; the film stars Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte. It tells the story of the narrator's struggle to overcome the psychological damage inflicted by his dysfunctional childhood in South Carolina...

, Boyz n the Hood
Boyz N the Hood
Boyz n the Hood is a 1991 American hood film written and directed by John Singleton. Starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ice Cube, Laurence Fishburne, Morris Chestnut, Nia Long, Angela Bassett and Regina King, the film depicts life in poor South Central Los Angeles, California and was filmed and released...

, The Bodyguard
The Bodyguard
The Bodyguard is a 1992 American romantic-thriller film starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. Costner stars as a former Secret Service Agent turned bodyguard who is hired to protect Houston's character, a music star, from an unknown stalker. Lawrence Kasdan wrote the film in the 1970s,...

, Grand Canyon, and Cousins (film)
Cousins (film)
Cousins is a 1989 remake of a French film , with Ted Danson, Isabella Rossellini, Sean Young, William Petersen, Lloyd Bridges, and Keith Coogan.-Plot summary:...

.

In 2005 Whalum recorded the Babyface Songbook (2005) with R&B icon Babyface's best songs of the past 15 years, including "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)," "I'll Make Love to You," "When Can I See You," and others. Joining in the intimate and stylish proceedings are other smooth jazz notables, including trumpeter Rick Braun
Rick Braun
Rick Braun is a smooth jazz trumpet player.Before embarking on a solo career, Braun got his start by playing in several bands, including guitarist Jeff Golub's Avenue Blue...

, soprano saxophone player Dave Koz
Dave Koz
Dave Koz is an American smooth jazz saxophonist.- Life and career :Dave Koz was born on March 27, 1963 in Encino, California....

, and guitarists Norman Brown
Norman Brown
Norman Brown may refer to:* W. Norman Brown , Indologist and Sanskritist* Norman O. Brown , author* Norman E. Brown, sports editor of the Central Press Association* Norman Brown...

 and Chuck Loeb
Chuck Loeb
Chuck Loeb is a guitarist who performs numerous styles of music, most notably jazz. Loeb's own solo projects have generally been commercially successful crossover jazz, which has "contemporary" or "smooth" jazz....

 among others. Whalum also contributed to the 2008 documentary film Miss HIV
Miss HIV
Miss HIV is a feature length documentary by Ethnographic Media, released to DVD on August 26, 2008. Written and directed by Jim Hanon , and produced by Mart Green, the film explores the international collision of HIV/AIDS policies while following the journey of two HIV-positive women who enter a...

.

Discography

  • Floppy Disk (1985)
  • And You Know That (1988)
  • The Promise (1989)
  • "Mad About the Wolf" from Simply Mad About the Mouse (1991)
  • Caché
    Caché (Kirk Whalum album)
    Caché is the second album by Jazz musician Kirk Whalum. Musicians who perform on the album include Marcus Miller, Nile Rodgers and Bob James.-Track listing:# X-Factor# Love Is a Losing Game# Livin' In the Streets# Fragile# Love Saw It...

    (1993)
  • In This Life (1995)
  • Joined at the Hip w/ Bob James
    Bob James (musician)
    Robert McElhiney James is a jazz keyboardist, arranger and producer.-Biography:During the 1970s, Bob James played a major role in establishing the smooth jazz genre. "Angela", the instrumental theme from the sitcom Taxi, is probably Bob James' most well-known work to date...

    (1996)
  • Colors (1997)
  • Gospel According to Jazz: Chapter 1 (1998)
  • For You (1998)
  • Unconditional (2000)
  • Hymns in the Garden (2001)
  • The Christmas Message (2001)
  • The Best of Kirk Whalum (2002)
  • Gospel According to Jazz: Chapter 2 (2002)
  • Into My Soul (2003)
  • Kirk Whalum Performs the Babyface Songbook (2005)
  • Ultimate Kirk Whalum (2007)
  • Roundtrip (2007)
  • Promises Made: The Millennium Promise Jazz Project (2008)
  • Everything Is Everything: The Music of Donny Hathaway (2010)
  • The Gospel According to Jazz Chapter III (2010)
  • "Romance Language" (2011)

External links

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