Kye Palmer
Encyclopedia
Kye Palmer is a trumpet player who is a Los Angeles studio musician, most notable as a former member of the Tonight Show Band from 2006 to 2009. On April 10, 2006, Kye Palmer replaced Lee Thornburg
in the Tonight Show Band and was there for the last part of Kevin Eubanks
tenure with the Tonight Show. He has recorded on several Grammy nominated/winning projects over the past 20 years.
n originally from Redlands
, starting being interested in music at the age of 7.
An early source of inspiration for him was being a part of the well known Stan Kenton Band Clinics
at the University of Redlands
. After high school hee first attended California State University, Long Beach
for a year to study music. He transferred to Fullerton College
and played trumpet on the Down Beat
award winning LP, Time Tripping
while playing in the college jazz groups for a year. After two years attending Fullerton College
he transferred and earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Cal Poly Pomona
. During that time he was working professionally as a trumpet player he was also employed at Honeywell
Corporation cross checking wire schematics for U.S. Department of Defense products the company manufactured. He studied privately with such legends as trumpet great Bobby Shew
and jazz vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake. "Of the 1,500 or so people that studied with me, Kye was one of those 20 or 25 players that was really important, who understood the music," Charlie Shoemake says. Palmer names Clifford Brown
and Freddie Hubbard
as his principal influences.
first got Palmer his start on the Woody Herman
Orchestra; Palmer toured 1988 through 1990 with the group. Palmer currently performs and records with the Chris Walden
Big Band, Bill Cunliffe
's "Imaginacion" and other groups in the Los Angeles
area. He has also performed and recorded with LeAnn Rimes
, Hawk-Richard Jazz Orchestra, Bob Dylan
, Tony Bennett
, Joe Williams
, and Diane Schuur
, as well as touring Japan with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra
and Poncho Sanchez
Latin jazz band. Television appearances include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with David Letterman
, Good Morning America
, the Today Show, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien
.
He has recorded for major motion picture soundtracks, including Seven Pounds
, Man of the Year
, Three to Tango
, Stuart Little
, and Me, Myself & Irene. Palmer appeared on the Brian Setzer Orchestra's Grammy Award
winning recording of "Caravan
", as well as Vavoom and Boogie Woogie Christmas
which were nominated for Grammys, and the certified gold Setzer CD Best of the Big Band. He recorded on the 2005 Grammy nominated, multi-platinum award winning CD It's Time (Michael Bublé album). He has also recorded with trumpeters Ron King, Marc Lewis, and Ron Stout on the CD The Clifford Brown Project in 2003 on the Capri Record label.
Lee Thornburg
Lee Thornburg is a trumpeter who has played with many artists, and also has been a member of Supertramp and Tower of Power. Thornburg also played with Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders in the 1970s.-Biography:...
in the Tonight Show Band and was there for the last part of Kevin Eubanks
Kevin Eubanks
Kevin Tyrone Eubanks is an American jazz guitarist and composer who was the leader of the Tonight Show Band with host Jay Leno from 1995 to 2010. He also led The Primetime Band on the short-lived The Jay Leno Show.- Personal background :Eubanks was born into a musical family...
tenure with the Tonight Show. He has recorded on several Grammy nominated/winning projects over the past 20 years.
Early years and education
Palmer, a native CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
n originally from Redlands
Redlands
-Australia:*Redland City, Queensland*SCECGS Redlands, Sydney*Electoral district of Redlands-United Kingdom:*Redlands , country estate of Keith Richards, venue of the Redlands drugs bust*Redlands *Redlands...
, starting being interested in music at the age of 7.
An early source of inspiration for him was being a part of the well known Stan Kenton Band Clinics
Stan Kenton Band Clinics
Stan Kenton Band Clinics were summer programs founded by Stan Kenton in 1959. Kenton conceived the idea out of concern that education of jazz and all its forms were not reaching teenagers who showed signs of interest in it...
at the University of Redlands
University of Redlands
The University of Redlands is a private liberal arts and sciences university located in Redlands, California. The university's campus sits on near downtown Redlands. The university was founded in 1907 and was associated with the American Baptist Church. The land for the university was donated by...
. After high school hee first attended California State University, Long Beach
California State University, Long Beach
California State University, Long Beach is the second largest campus of the California State University system and the third largest university in the state of California by enrollment...
for a year to study music. He transferred to Fullerton College
Fullerton College
Fullerton College is the oldest community college in continuous operation in California, having been established in 1913. Current enrollment is 22,014.- History 1913 to 1972 :...
and played trumpet on the Down Beat
Down Beat
Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...
award winning LP, Time Tripping
Time Tripping
Time Tripping is an album released by the Fullerton College Jazz Band for the Discovery Records Trend AM-PM label, it became the Down Beat Magazine 1st Place Award Winner in the College Big Band Jazz category for 1983.- Background :...
while playing in the college jazz groups for a year. After two years attending Fullerton College
Fullerton College
Fullerton College is the oldest community college in continuous operation in California, having been established in 1913. Current enrollment is 22,014.- History 1913 to 1972 :...
he transferred and earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Cal Poly Pomona
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, or Cal Poly Pomona, is a public university located in Pomona, California, United States...
. During that time he was working professionally as a trumpet player he was also employed at Honeywell
Honeywell
Honeywell International, Inc. is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
Corporation cross checking wire schematics for U.S. Department of Defense products the company manufactured. He studied privately with such legends as trumpet great Bobby Shew
Bobby Shew
-Biography:After leaving college in 1960, Shew was drafted into the U.S. Army and played trumpet with the NORAD band in Colorado Springs and on tour. After leaving the Army, Shew joined Tommy Dorsey's band and then played with the Woody Herman and then the Buddy Rich Big Bands in the mid-to-late...
and jazz vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake. "Of the 1,500 or so people that studied with me, Kye was one of those 20 or 25 players that was really important, who understood the music," Charlie Shoemake says. Palmer names Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
and Freddie Hubbard
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
as his principal influences.
Professional career
Trumpeter Bobby ShewBobby Shew
-Biography:After leaving college in 1960, Shew was drafted into the U.S. Army and played trumpet with the NORAD band in Colorado Springs and on tour. After leaving the Army, Shew joined Tommy Dorsey's band and then played with the Woody Herman and then the Buddy Rich Big Bands in the mid-to-late...
first got Palmer his start on the Woody Herman
Woody Herman
Woodrow Charles Herman , known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders...
Orchestra; Palmer toured 1988 through 1990 with the group. Palmer currently performs and records with the Chris Walden
Chris Walden
Chris Walden is a German composer, arranger, and conductor living in the U.S. He leads his own jazz big band, the Chris Walden Big Band, based in Los Angeles and was nominated four times for a Grammy award....
Big Band, Bill Cunliffe
Bill Cunliffe
Bill Cunliffe is an American jazz pianist and composer based in Los Angeles He has been described by The New York Times as being in the "modern jazz mainstream" and as an "accomplished pianist and composer." Ernie Rideout of Keyboard Magazine described Cunliffe's playing as "inventive, melodic,...
's "Imaginacion" and other groups in the 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...
area. He has also performed and recorded with LeAnn Rimes
LeAnn Rimes
LeAnn Rimes is an American country/pop singer. She is known for her rich vocals and her rise to fame as an eight-year-old champion on the original Ed McMahon version of Star Search, followed by the release of the Patsy Cline-intended single "Blue" when Rimes was only age 13, resulting in her...
, Hawk-Richard Jazz Orchestra, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, Joe Williams
Joe Williams (jazz singer)
Joe Williams was a well-known jazz vocalist, a baritone singing a mixture of blues, ballads, popular songs, and jazz standards.-Early life:...
, and Diane Schuur
Diane Schuur
Diane Schuur is an American jazz singer and pianist. Nicknamed "Deedles", she has won two Grammy Awards, headlined many of the world's most prestigious music venues, including Carnegie Hall and The White House and has toured the world performing with such greats as Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, B. B...
, as well as touring Japan with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra
Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra
John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, and Jeff Clayton brought together a group of Los Angeles-based musicians in 1985 and formed the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra . Reviewers and fans loved the big band, and the orchestra's first recording, Groove Shop , earned a Grammy Award nomination. CD Review named...
and Poncho Sanchez
Poncho Sanchez
Poncho Sanchez , a Mexican-American, is a conguero , Latin jazz band leader, and salsa singer. In 2000, Sanchez and his ensemble won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album for their work on the Concord Picante album Latin Soul...
Latin jazz band. Television appearances include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with David Letterman
Late Night with David Letterman
Late Night with David Letterman is a nightly hour-long comedy talk show on NBC that was created and hosted by David Letterman. It premiered in 1982 as the first incarnation of the Late Night franchise and went off the air in 1993, after Letterman left NBC and moved to Late Show on CBS. Late Night...
, Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
, the Today Show, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
.
He has recorded for major motion picture soundtracks, including Seven Pounds
Seven Pounds
Seven Pounds is a 2008 film, directed by Gabriele Muccino. Will Smith stars as a man who sets out to change the lives of seven people. Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, and Barry Pepper star. The film was released in theaters in the United States and Canada on December 19, 2008, by Columbia Pictures...
, Man of the Year
Man of the Year
A Man of the Year award usually refers to a person nominated as the most influential or meritous in a business, organisation, a specific form of human endeavour, or amongst humanity at large...
, Three to Tango
Three to Tango
Three to Tango is a 1999 romantic comedy film starring Matthew Perry, Neve Campbell, Dylan McDermott and Oliver Platt.- Plot :Set amidst Chicago's swing music revival of the late 1990s, Oscar Novak , an aspiring architect and his business partner, Peter Steinberg , have just landed a career-making...
, Stuart Little
Stuart Little
Stuart Little is a 1945 children's novel by E. B. White, his first book for children, and is widely recognized as a classic in children's literature. Stuart Little was illustrated by the subsequently award-winning artist Garth Williams, also his first work for children...
, and Me, Myself & Irene. Palmer appeared on the Brian Setzer Orchestra's Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
winning recording of "Caravan
Caravan (song)
"Caravan" is a jazz standard composed by Juan Tizol and first performed by Duke Ellington in 1937. Irving Mills wrote the lyrics, but he sometimes is not credited on the many instrumental versions. Its exotic sound interested exotica musicians; Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman both covered it. Woody...
", as well as Vavoom and Boogie Woogie Christmas
Boogie Woogie Christmas
Boogie Woogie Christmas is a 2002 Christmas album recorded by the Brian Setzer Orchestra.-Original:#Jingle Bells - 2:22#Boogie Woogie Santa Claus - 3:02#Winter Wonderland - 2:40#Blue Christmas - 2:48#Santa Claus Is Back In Town - 3:48...
which were nominated for Grammys, and the certified gold Setzer CD Best of the Big Band. He recorded on the 2005 Grammy nominated, multi-platinum award winning CD It's Time (Michael Bublé album). He has also recorded with trumpeters Ron King, Marc Lewis, and Ron Stout on the CD The Clifford Brown Project in 2003 on the Capri Record label.