Radar Report

THE JAZZ SAGE

Composer/saxophonist KIRK WHALUM brings a world of wisdom to his music

He's famous for the warm purity of tone that he creates with the tenor and soprano sax. It's a sound he's worked long and hard to develop, though he feels it stems from an innate gift. "It's about getting out of the way," he says, during an interview in a Burbank hotel room. "The closer you get to the original voice God gave you, the more impact it can have on people."

He's brought that sound to the music of many superstars, including Barbra Streisand, Al Jarreau, Quincy Jones, Luther Vandross and Whitney Houston, with whom he toured for seven years. It's his solo at the heart of Whitney's mega-hit, "I Will Always Love You," which was recorded entirely live. "I have many fond memories of my years spent touring with Whitney," he says. "Her powerful gift impacted me profoundly, much like the gospel singers who influenced us both."

Now he's bringing his smooth jazz signature to the crystalline melodies of his friend Babyface, on the new album, Kirk Whalum performs the Babyface Songbook, produced by Matt Pierson. "We wanted to stretch the boundaries," he says, "and bring another sensibility to the music of Babyface, a guy who is perceived as a middle-of-the-road, almost trendy producer/writer, but who I consider a great American songwriter. I wanted to do an album like this, celebrating the music of one great songwriter, and it was easy to choose Babyface, because I'm a fan of his. Though his work is thought of as pop, his songs betray a deeper, much more profound gift, and a connection with people. And music is about communication. As jazz musicians, we tend to gravitate towards technical virtuosity. But that's only one form of communication and perhaps it's an inferior one, because the more virtuosic you become, the narrower your audience is. The guy who can just strum the guitar and play the blues, can reach anybody. And Babyface's gift is that he communicates; his music reaches people."

Raised in Memphis, Whalum's first instrument was drums, and from there be moved to bass guitar. But at the age of twelve he was introduced to band instruments in junior high, and he fell in love with the saxophone "both for the way it sounded and the way it looked." He always knew he wanted to be a professional musician, though his mother told him he needed something to fall back on. "But Mom," he told her, "I'm not gonna fall back." He went to college at Houston's Texas Southern, where he composed his first music and organized his first band. Opening a show in 1984, he so impressed the headliner, pianist Bob James, that he was invited to play on James' next album, which led to a record contract for Whalum with Columbia Records. He released many critically acclaimed solo albums, alternating then as he does now between albums of originals and albums dedicated to the music of others. In 1998, he recorded his first gospel album, Gospel According To Jazz, Chapter One, which was influenced by the spiritual depth of the music of his childhood. That same year he made For You, an album of covers, which soared to the top of the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Chart.

His new album was created with the aim of sounding "authentic," Whalum explains, "sounding like a jazz record." He and Pierson intentionally eschewed the conventional studio gloss of heavy reverb and other effects so as to preserve the acoustic purity of Whalum's sound, and that of the other instruments. The album begins with solo sax, a sign of what is to come: an album that is dedicated to the melodicism of Babyface, but with a singularity of unadulterated musical focus. "We recorded it without the elements that you categorically hear on smooth jazz records," he says. "I never signed on to be a smooth jazz artist, as it were. That's a format that was created and which we were dumped into. I'm grateful for the radio stations that play my records. But these formats can be narrow in terms of the sound that they are looking for. What about the people, what are they looking for?"

Now with the Babyface project complete, Whalum is happily spanning genres, connecting with a new audience while maintaining the loyal foundation of his established fan base. "Where I live," he says, "is straddling a few fences. Having been raised in Memphis, I really cut my teeth on gospel and real R&B, with emphasis on the B, which is blues. And then I was seriously bit by the jazz bug. These days I try to do it all."

— Paul Zollo

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