BWMN’s “Jazz at the Network” featuring Kirk Whalum and Friend
| “Jazz at the Network” featuring the legendary Kirk Whalum and friends today from 6-8pm EST… Kirk Whalum was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He attended Melrose High School and Texas Southern University, where he was a member of the renowned Ocean of Soul Marching Band. In addition to singing in his father’s church choir, Whalum 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. He told John H. Johnson’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.” Whalum has worked on a number of film scores, including for The Prince of Tides, Boyz n the Hood, The Bodyguard, Grand Canyon and Cousins. 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. Whalum also contributed to the 2008 documentary film Miss HIV. On June 20, 2014, Whalum was the inaugural Jazz Legend honoree of the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, Tennessee. In September 2015, it was announced that Whalum would be joining the faculty of Visible Music College in Memphis, Tennessee.[2] In September 2018 he received the coveted honor of a Brass Note on Historic Beale Street in his native Memphis. |
