Kenny Kirkland

Black Codes (From the Underground)Black Codes (From the Underground)Wynton Marsalis · 1985 (1985) was a manifesto for the neo-bop movement. The Branford MarsalisBranford Marsalisブランフォード・マルサリス brothers, Kenny KirklandKenny KirklandKenny Kirkland · 1991's piano, Jeff Jeff "Tain" WattsJeff "Tain" Wattsジェフ・テイン・ワッツ's drums — this band devoted itself entirely to reviving bebop's language in the present tense.

Full concert of the post-Kirkland Branford MarsalisBranford Marsalisブランフォード・マルサリス Quartet with Joey CalderazzoJoey Calderazzoジョーイ・カルデラッツォ on piano at the 1999 North Sea Jazz Festival.

Full North Sea Jazz Festival concert of the golden-era Branford MarsalisBranford Marsalisブランフォード・マルサリス Quartet with Kenny KirklandKenny KirklandKenny Kirkland · 1991, Bob Hurst, and Jeff 'Jeff "Tain" WattsJeff "Tain" Wattsジェフ・テイン・ワッツ' Jeff "Tain" WattsJeff "Tain" Wattsジェフ・テイン・ワッツ, July 1987.

Branford MarsalisBranford Marsalisブランフォード・マルサリス Quartet performing Wayne ShorterWayne Shorterウェイン・ショーター's 'Yes Or No' live at The Bottom Line in 1989 during the Kenny KirklandKenny KirklandKenny Kirkland · 1991 years.

In 1982, when Wynton asked his brother Branford who he knew for a new band, the answer was: call Kenny Kirkland, and put Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums. Watts was an unknown Berklee student at the time; that single recommendation set the entire rhythm section of Wynton's 1980s quartet and put both men on the map.

When Kenny Kirkland died suddenly in 1998, a reporter told Branford Marsalis he was 'reconsidering Wynton's band.' Branford cut him off: the pianist had been a name in the small print while alive — and only in death was he worth a second look?

In 1985, bassist Charnett Moffett was just 17 and largely unknown when he recorded Wynton Marsalis's landmark album Black Codes (From the Underground). The record became a jazz classic, and it put a teenager at the center of the scene.

Kenny Kirkland played on a long list of records, among them Black Codes (From the Underground) in 1985, yet he put out exactly one album under his own name: Kenny Kirkland, in 1991. The drummer on it was Jeff "Tain" Watts, who had been sitting next to him on Black Codes six years earlier.