Kenny Kirkland

Kenneth David Kirkland (September 28, 1955 – November 12, 1998) was an American pianist and keyboardist.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, United States, Kirkland was six when he first sat down at a piano keyboard. After years of Catholic schooling, Kirkland enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied classical piano performance, classical theory and composition.

Kirkland's first professional work came with Polish fusion violinist Michal Urbaniak, touring throughout Europe with his group in 1977. Coincidentally, his next high-profile gig was with another Eastern European jazz émigré, Miroslav Vitous. Kirkland is featured on Vitous' ECM recordings First Meeting and Miroslav Vitous Group.

In 1980, while Kirkland was on tour in Japan with Terumasa Hino, he met Wynton Marsalis, which began his long association with both Wynton and his older brother Branford. On Wynton’s self-titled debut album, Kirkland shared the piano duties with one of his musical influences, Herbie Hancock, but was the sole pianist on Marsalis's subsequent releases Think of One, Hot House Flower and Black Codes (From the Underground).

In 1985 Kirkland (alongside Branford Marsalis) joined the Blue Turtles, the jazz-pop studio-and-touring backing band put together by Sting to perform the latter's post-Police solo work and which can be heard on his first two solo releases The Dream of the Blue Turtles and Bring on the Night. Although the Blue Turtles would be a relatively short-lived outfit (performing two or three years of high-profile touring before Sting opted to continue with more traditional pop lineups), Kirkland would maintain his musical relationship with Sting afterwards, performing various piano and keyboard parts on subsequent studio albums.