Kalil Wilson
Encyclopedia
Kalil Amar Wilson is an American jazz
, R&B, and classical
vocalist and vocal coach
.
Wilson was born in Oakland, California
and attended the Oakland Youth Chorus, and UC Berkeley's Young Musicians Program, before moving to Los Angeles in 2000 to attend UCLA. In 2006 he received his B.A.
in ethnomusicology
, earning magna cum laude honors, and being named the distinguished ethnomusicology student of the year. Jazz guitar legend Kenny Burrell
has said of Wilson, "A very special young talent with a unique sound that crosses through genres. I look forward to watching his successful career."
, Los Angeles Opera
, Walt Disney Concert Hall
, the California Philharmonic, the Getty Museum and UCLA Live at Royce Hall
. In 2008, Kalil competed in the Metropolitan Opera
National Council Auditions on the Met stage in New York
, after receiving first place in the preliminary Western regional auditions. Kalil spent the summers of 2005 and 2006 on fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival and School
, in his final summer, performing the title role in Britten's Albert Herring
. The Aspen Times
reported, "Wilson brought a silken tenor sound and an engaging and often funny stage presence." Wilson has appeared numerous times with the Oakland East Bay Symphony
, under the direction of Maestro Michael Morgan
. Wilson currently specializes in Baroque
and 20th century classical repertoire. Renée Fleming
has said, "Kalil makes me cry."(
)
In 2006, after being introduced to renowned vocal coach, Seth Riggs
, Wilson began to extend his efforts into jazz
, R&B, and other contemporary vocal genres; Kalil also began his career in vocal instruction under the mentorship of Mr. Riggs. That year, Wilson was selected as a finalist in the first annual Jose Iturbi
International Vocal Competition. During the competition, Wilson met and began work with an accompanist, UCLA pianist Berkeley Everett
; following the competition, they continued their collaboration. In 2007, Wilson and Everett began work on a full-length debut album devoted to the American Songbook.
is rooted in his family story. His father is Nigerian bassist
Babá Ken Okulolo
. In 2006, Wilson began headlining at various West Coast jazz venues and festivals, including the Jazz Bakery
, The Central Avenue Jazz Festival
, Jazz Reggae Festival
, and Yoshi's. In July 2009, Wilson performed with his mentor, Kenny Burrell
, on stage at Los Angeles
's Catalina Jazz club.
In March 2010, Kalil made his Europe
an performance debut at La Sala Apolo, in Barcelona
with the Barcelona Jazz Orchestra. That same year, Wilson was selected to compete in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocalist Competition, in Washington DC.
at the Oakland East Bay Symphony´s November 2010 season opening concert. In 2011 Kalil joined Omara Portuondo
and the Buena Vista Social Club
at the L'Auditori
in Barcelona as a special surprise guest.
88.1 Los Angeles and KCSM 91.1 San Francisco.
Writes Raul Da Gama Rosa, AllAboutJazz.com
contributing editor:
Track listing:
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, R&B, and classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
vocalist and vocal coach
Vocal coach
A vocal coach is a music teacher who instructs singers on how to improve their singing technique, take care of and develop their voice, and prepare for the performance of a song or other work. Vocal coaches may give private music lessons to singers, or they may coach singers who are rehearsing on...
.
Wilson was born in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
and attended the Oakland Youth Chorus, and UC Berkeley's Young Musicians Program, before moving to Los Angeles in 2000 to attend UCLA. In 2006 he received his B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...
, earning magna cum laude honors, and being named the distinguished ethnomusicology student of the year. Jazz guitar legend Kenny Burrell
Kenny Burrell
Kenneth Earl "Kenny" Burrell is an American jazz guitarist. His playing is grounded in bebop and blues; he has performed and recorded with a wide range of jazz musicians.-Biography:...
has said of Wilson, "A very special young talent with a unique sound that crosses through genres. I look forward to watching his successful career."
Classical
Wilson has performed lead tenor roles with the Los Angeles PhilharmonicLos Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...
, Los Angeles Opera
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.-Current leadership:...
, Walt Disney Concert Hall
Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the...
, the California Philharmonic, the Getty Museum and UCLA Live at Royce Hall
Royce Hall
Royce Hall is a building on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles . Designed by the Los Angeles firm of Allison & Allison in the Italian Romanesque Revival style and completed in 1929, it is one of the four original buildings on UCLA's Westwood campus and has come to be the...
. In 2008, Kalil competed in the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
National Council Auditions on the Met stage in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, after receiving first place in the preliminary Western regional auditions. Kalil spent the summers of 2005 and 2006 on fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival and School
Aspen Music Festival and School
The Aspen Music Festival and School, founded in 1949, is an internationally renowned classical music festival that presents music in an intimate, small-town setting...
, in his final summer, performing the title role in Britten's Albert Herring
Albert Herring
Albert Herring, Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten.Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera The Rape of Lucretia...
. The Aspen Times
Aspen Times
The Aspen Times is an 11,500-circulation, 7-day-a-week newspaper in the ski resort of Aspen, Colorado with a history dating back to 1881.-History:...
reported, "Wilson brought a silken tenor sound and an engaging and often funny stage presence." Wilson has appeared numerous times with the Oakland East Bay Symphony
Oakland East Bay Symphony
The Oakland East Bay Symphony is a leading orchestra based in Oakland, California. The current music director and conductor is Michael Morgan, who has held the position since September 1990. The Paramount Theatre has been the home of the Symphony since the 1995. Bryan Nies has been Assistant...
, under the direction of Maestro Michael Morgan
Michael Morgan (conductor)
Michael Morgan is an American conductor. He is currently music director of the Oakland East Bay Symphony and the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, and artistic director of in Walnut Creek, California.-Biography:...
. Wilson currently specializes in Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
and 20th century classical repertoire. Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming is an American soprano specializing in opera and lieder. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice.Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano repertoires. She has sung roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also...
has said, "Kalil makes me cry."(
)
In 2006, after being introduced to renowned vocal coach, Seth Riggs
Seth Riggs
Seth Riggs is an American vocal coach and founder of a technique known as Speech Level Singing. Some of his students have included Whoopi Goldberg, Michael Jackson, Kalil Wilson, Ray Charles, Josh Groban and Philip Webb.- External links :...
, Wilson began to extend his efforts into jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, R&B, and other contemporary vocal genres; Kalil also began his career in vocal instruction under the mentorship of Mr. Riggs. That year, Wilson was selected as a finalist in the first annual Jose Iturbi
José Iturbi
José Iturbi was a Spanish conductor, harpsichordist and pianist. He appeared in several Hollywood films of the 1940s, notably playing himself in the 1943 musical, Thousands Cheer and in the 1945 film, Anchors Aweigh...
International Vocal Competition. During the competition, Wilson met and began work with an accompanist, UCLA pianist Berkeley Everett
Berkeley Everett
Berkeley Everett is an American jazz pianist, well known for his association with vocalist Kalil Wilson. He has headlined Jazz Reggae Festival, the Jazz Bakery...
; following the competition, they continued their collaboration. In 2007, Wilson and Everett began work on a full-length debut album devoted to the American Songbook.
Jazz, Soul, R&B,
Kalil's journey into popular musicPopular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
is rooted in his family story. His father is Nigerian bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
Babá Ken Okulolo
Babá Ken Okulolo
Babá Ken Okulolo is a Nigerian bassist and bandleader who was first seen in the U.S. in 1985 with King Sunny Ade's world-touring band. He has played with renowned Afrobeat creator Fela Anikulapo Kuti, highlife master Victor Olaiya, and was a founder of the Afro-rock group Monomono in the 1970s...
. In 2006, Wilson began headlining at various West Coast jazz venues and festivals, including the Jazz Bakery
Jazz Bakery
The Jazz Bakery is a jazz club in the former Helms Bakery on Helms Avenue off Venice Boulevard in Culver City, California. It was established as a not-for-profit company by jazz vocalist Ruth Price, others, including Maurice Hall co-founded the bakery. It is based on an informal concert hall model...
, The Central Avenue Jazz Festival
Central Avenue Jazz Festival
The Central Avenue Jazz Festival is a yearly free jazz festival that takes place the last weekend of July in the South Central section of Los Angeles, which is the historical predominantly African-American area of the City....
, Jazz Reggae Festival
Jazz Reggae Festival
The JazzReggae Festival @ UCLA is a two day festival for music, art, culture and diversity, held every Memorial Day Weekend on the UCLA Intramural Field...
, and Yoshi's. In July 2009, Wilson performed with his mentor, Kenny Burrell
Kenny Burrell
Kenneth Earl "Kenny" Burrell is an American jazz guitarist. His playing is grounded in bebop and blues; he has performed and recorded with a wide range of jazz musicians.-Biography:...
, on stage at Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
's Catalina Jazz club.
In March 2010, Kalil made his Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an performance debut at La Sala Apolo, in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
with the Barcelona Jazz Orchestra. That same year, Wilson was selected to compete in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocalist Competition, in Washington DC.
Latin
Kalil Wilson performed a duet with guitarist Carlos SantanaCarlos Santana
Carlos Augusto Alves Santana is a Mexican rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, salsa and jazz fusion...
at the Oakland East Bay Symphony´s November 2010 season opening concert. In 2011 Kalil joined Omara Portuondo
Omara Portuondo
Omara Portuondo Peláez is a Cuban singer and dancer whose career has spanned over half a century. She was one of the original members of the Cuarteto d'Aida, and has performed with Ignacio Piñeiro, Orquesta Anacaona, Orquesta Aragón, Nat King Cole, Adalberto Álvarez, Los Van Van, the Buena Vista...
and the Buena Vista Social Club
Buena Vista Social Club
The Buena Vista Social Club was a members club in Havana, Cuba that held dances and musical activities, becoming a popular location for musicians to meet and play during the 1940s...
at the L'Auditori
L'Auditori
L'Auditori is a modern building of 42,000 square metres designed by the architect Rafael Moneo, opened on 22 March 1999, in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain....
in Barcelona as a special surprise guest.
Easy to Love
Wilson's self-produced debut album, Easy to Love, was released in 2009. It has been critically praised, and received support from jazz radio stations like KKJZKKJZ
KKJZ is a non-commercial public radio station in Southern California broadcasting from the Long Beach State campus. The station is one of several public radio stations in Southern California presenting jazz and blues....
88.1 Los Angeles and KCSM 91.1 San Francisco.
Writes Raul Da Gama Rosa, AllAboutJazz.com
All About Jazz
All About Jazz is a leading jazz music website for enthusiasts and industry professionals based in Philadelphia in the United States.Founded by Michael Ricci in 1995, the Web-Site is maintained by a volunteer staff of writers, editors, and musicians, and provides coverage of all genres of jazz from...
contributing editor:
"The days of the great male crooners are over…Until, it appears, Kalil Wilson came along. Here is a singer, a profoundly smokey tenor who is so singular and naturally expressive that his voice appears biologically connected to ‘living breath.’ His phrasing, dynamics and expression are sublime, effortless and otherworldly.
Wilson is heard on Easy to Love, a debut of bottomless depth and grandeur. But it's also self-effacing and completely lacking in the grandstanding that some vocalists might resort to today, in order to be heard and appreciated. His deeply personal interpretation and polished delivery make this an exquisite and priceless debut record." - AllAboutJazz.com
Track listing:
- Day by DayDay by Day (song)"Day by Day" is a popular song with music by Axel Stordahl and Paul Weston and lyrics by Sammy Cahn.-Recorded versions:*Ernestine Anderson*Ray Anthony*Shirley Bassey*Les Brown & His Orchestra *Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Sextet...
- I Concentrate on YouI Concentrate on You"I Concentrate on You" is a song written by Cole Porter for the 1940 film Broadway Melody of 1940, where it was introduced by Douglas McPhail.-Notable recordings:...
- You've ChangedYou've Changed"You've Changed" is a popular song originally written by Bill Carey and Carl Fischer in 1941. It has been covered by many singers, including:*Harry James's band with vocals by Dick Haymes *Nat King Cole *Connie Russell...
- Nature BoyNature BoyNature Boy is a song written by eden ahbez and later popularised by Nat King Cole. It may also refer to:In music:* "Nature Boy", a song by Primus from their album 'Pork Soda'...
- I Cried for YouI Cried for You"I Cried for You" is a song by Georgian born songstress Katie Melua, and was the second single from her second album, Piece by Piece. The single is a double A-side consisting of "I Cried for You", which is one of Melua's own compositions, and a cover of The Cure's song "Just like Heaven", the...
- Easy LivingEasy Living (song)"Easy Living" is a jazz standard written by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin for the film Easy Living directed by Mitchell Leisen.The song has been recorded by many jazz performers including Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, Anita O'Day, and Miles Davis...
- StardustStardust (song)"Stardust" is an American popular song composed in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics added in 1929 by Mitchell Parish. Originally titled "Star Dust", Carmichael first recorded the song at the Gennett Records studio in Richmond, Indiana...
- I'm in the Mood for LoveI'm in the Mood for Love"I'm in the Mood for Love" is a popular song. The music was written by Jimmy McHugh, the lyrics by Dorothy Fields. The song was published in 1935. It was introduced by Frances Langford in the movie Every Night at Eight released that year...
- Then I'll be Tired of You
- I Only Have Eyes for YouI Only Have Eyes for You"I Only Have Eyes for You" is a popular song by composer Harry Warren and lyricist Al Dubin, written in 1934 for the film Dames where it was introduced by Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler....
- Do You Know Why?
- If I Could Be With You
- If It's Magic
- A Song for YouA Song for You"A Song for You" is a soulful love song written and originally recorded by rock singer-songwriter and pianist Leon Russell for his first solo album 'Leon Russell', which was released in 1970 on Shelter Records. A slow, pained plea for forgiveness and understanding from an estranged lover, the tune...
- Just for Grandma Jo
Contributions
- 2009 - The Elliot Deutsch Big Band "Weeknight Music" (Independent) "A Beautiful Friendship"
- 2010 - Dan Marschak "Easy to Love" (Independent) "I Love You", "Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You"
External links
- Kalil Wilson Official Site
- Kalil Wilson Official Facebook Page
- Kalil Wilson on TwitterTwitterTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...