Kirk Whalum
By Will Jordan
published in Southern Exposure Magazine
The Factory at Franklin’s Saffire Restaurant is Relatively slow on this particular Friday afternoon, and one of the waiters has plenty of time to describe all of the elaborate dishes on the menu. Ruby and Kirk Whalum are sitting at a table toward the rear of the restaurant chatting together quietly when the waiter steps up to them and begins to speak.
Ruby’s hand goes up gently. She smiles and says, “I’ll have the shrimp and grits.” Kirk echoes her order, and the waiter puts his pad away, a little disappointed that he wasn’t able to finish his approach.
“It’s never this easy,” he says as he shuffles away. “I don’t even need to write anything down.”
It’s always this easy for Ruby and Kirk, who have been married 25 years and “best friends” since they were children. They tend to finish each other’s sentences and know what the other is thinking. Kirk is one of the premier jazz saxophonists in the nation and has played with everyone from Whitney Houston to Nancy Wilson, Al Jarreau, Luther Vandross, Barbra Streisand and Quincy Jones.
LIVING IN FRANKLIN
The music business brought the Whalums to the Nashville area nearly 10 years ago, and last year they made the move to Sullivan Farms in Franklin. Neither were strangers to the area though. When they first moved to middle Tennessee, they discovered Franklin’s Strong Tower Bible Church and became entrenched in the church and its community.
“When we first moved here from Los Angeles, we never differentiated between Nashville and Franklin. Now we do,” Ruby says with a laugh.
While the move to Nashville is similar to others stories, Kirk’s is unique.
“I was in Los Angeles at Sony and had been listening to a lot of Bonnie Raitt at the time,” Kirk remembers. “I suggested [to Sony executives] that I make a country album. They all laughed at the thought of a black jazz saxophonist playing country music.”
One of the executives, George Butler believed in Kirk’s idea and sent him to Nashville to meet with a friend of his, then Sony-Nashville Executive Steve Buckingham. He not only endorsed the idea, he also produced the album. And though In This Life received mixed reviews and substandard sales, Ruby says she loved it.
“That was one of my favorite album’s of Kirk’s,” she says. “It really started to pinpoint who he is. That album represents us. It’s hard to separate us, because we’ve always been together.”
A MUSICIAN’S LIFE
Over his lengthy career, Kirk has made 18 solo CD projects. But he would never have guessed that he’d realize the kind of success he’s had. He grew up a pastor’s kid, and it’s not surprising to learn that Kirk’s sound was birthed in the Baptist church. He first expressed his interest in music on the drums, switching to saxophone in junior high school when he was “impressed with the shininess of the sax.” He began playing local functions and clubs while still in high school, until a music scholarship brought him to Texas Southern University in Houston.
“I became enthralled by the ‘Texas Tenor’ sound and was able to spend many years gleaning from Arnett Cobb…one of the fathers of that ‘big’Texas sound,” he says in a release.
Having built a steady following as a sideman in some of Houston’s top jazz clubs, Kirk started his own band in 1980. “Houston was such a cool music town in the early ’80s,” he remembers.
“There were so many live music venues then … everybody came through Houston. I have memories of hanging out with Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins. I was like a sponge – just sitting there with these giants and absorbing everything they threw my way.”
Kirk became the opening act for jazz shows that came to Houston, and in 1983 he caught the ear of jazz pianist Bob James, who was so impressed with the young Whalum that two weeks later Kirk found himself in New York soloing on Bob’s album, Bob James 12. Kirk became a member of his touring band and eventually snagged a recording deal with Columbia Records. Kirk released five records while signed to Columbia. The 1995 release, Cache, put Kirk on the charts. Cache went to #1 and remained there for five weeks.
In 1987, Kirk received a phone call from jazz guitarist Larry Carlton, asking him to come out to Los Angeles to record with him. Kirk not only recorded his sounds on the album, but moved his family there as well. Kirk soon became an “in demand” session player and during the late ’80s and early ’90s, he recorded and performed with a slew of blockbuster acts. There were movie soundtrack recordings including; Boys in the Hood, Grand Canyon, The Prince of Tides and unforgettably, Whitney Houston’s 1993 release, The Bodyguard.
“I have so many fond memories my years spent touring with Whitney,” says Kirk, who also served as the unofficial chaplain for Houston and her band. “I toured with Whitney for seven years, but was still out playing and making records. It helped me find my own voice.”
In July 1992, Kirk realized a long overdue dream by moving his family to Paris, France, something he had wanted to do since he won a scholarship to study French at the Alliance Française in Paris, France in 1979. In 1996, Kirk began working with Warner Bros. Records, and he and Bob James collaborated on Joined at the Hip. They received a Grammy nomination for their effort. He signed with Warner Bros., and in 1997 released his first solo album for that label, Colors, which was inspired by Kirk’s appreciation for cultural and musical diversity as well as his passion for racial reconciliation.
The 1998 release of For You cemented Kirk’s place on the Smooth Jazz Charts. For You has been Kirk’s best selling CD to date and rendered four Top 10 hits. It remained on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz charts for more than 65 weeks and was Top Ten on the charts for 53 weeks. His subsequent releases have garnered equal praise, with a total of seven Grammy nominations and one Stellar Award (Best Gospel Instrumental Album), and he is thought of as one of the most instrumental saxophone players of his era. Kirk recently signed a deal with Rendezvous Records and is slated to host this year’s Music City Jazz, Blues and Heritage Festival in Nashville.
“I haven’t gotten rich doing this, but I have been enriched by doing this,” Kirk says with a smile.
LIVING BY FAITH
As much as his music, Kirk is as emphatic about his faith and devotion to God. Though his father was a Baptist minister, Kirk says he didn’t “find Christ” until he was 15.
“Becoming a Christian is about meeting Christ,” he says. “It was always in my mind, but not in my heart.”
He was at a Baptist youth camp in Linden, Tenn., when he experienced an epiphany that was both devastating and exhilarating. He says he “cried like a baby.”
It was also a pivotal time in his life, because it was at that youth camp that Kirk first met Ruby. Later when he went to Texas Southern University on a scholarship, he was taking an English class and had to analyze something in the Bible.
“I got my Bible off my shelf, which was dusty, because I hadn’t read it for so long,” he remembers. “I opened it and there was a dead roach squished in the pages. I knew I was a fake. I began to read the Bible and it changed my whole life. What you know about God from your senses, from other people and nature and all those things is one thing. But the commitment to know Him intimately, that is a totally different thing. And that’s something that I began to do by virtue of reading His word and then beginning to understand His heart.”
These days, Kirk is completely devoted to his church and outreach. He has hosted numerous benefit concerts on behalf of many organizations including the Boys and Girls Club of Pasadena (Calif.) and the Tennessee YMCA. He has recently fulfilled a 10-year benefit commitment for the Houston Leukemia/Lymphoma Society. And he has become an elder at Strong Tower and is hoping to start a new event to benefit New Hope Academy and FCA called “Swing Eggs and Ham.”
“It would be like a really cool, very sophisticated, really fun jazz brunch,” he explains. “People would start looking for it every year because they’ll come and wear their swing dance gear – or not – and we’ll have a big band play … I think one primary way for us to be involved in this region is through education. We’re not educators and don’t necessarily know anything about that, but somehow to be a resource for empowerment specifically of minority and poor kids.”
