All About Jazz is celebrating Kenny Kirkland's birthday today!
Beginning his career as a teacher of classical music, Kenny Kirkland next became a jazz musician. Later he emerged from his jazz chrysalis as a practitioner of exotic pop/rock music and finally shed his wings to follow the mundane but financially more stable profession of studio musician. Kirkland was an associate of Wynton Marsalis, it is not surprising therefore that the five years Kirkland spent working for him (1981-85) should have been such a powerful influence on him.
He was born Kenneth David Kirkland in Brooklyn, New York, on 28 September, 1955, and took up piano at the age...Read more.