Content and Delivery: Kirk Whalum on the Solo Career vs. the Sideman Gig (Episode 9)

Make Music Your Business.

Some guests are heroes. Some are mentors. For Nomad, saxophonist Kirk Whalum is both. Nomad spent eight years as Kirk's guitar player while living in Nashville, and he still calls him Uncle Kirk. In Episode 9 of The Career Musician, the two sat down at the dinner table to talk about faith, the music business, social media and the hard choice between a solo career and a big sideman gig.

Kirk is the saxophone on Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," and the man behind the Gospel According to Jazz series. If you are trying to figure out how to build a solo career in music without losing yourself, this conversation is for you.

Getting dropped became the beginning

Around the time he and Nomad met, Kirk had been dropped from Columbia Records after about 12 years. He called it an earthquake of the ego. Then, right as he was about to have his pity party, his wife stopped him with one question.

"She said, okay, what can you do today that you couldn't do yesterday when you were a Columbia recording artist?"

Kirk Whalum, 6:17

That question led him to something he had been doing quietly for years: expressing his faith openly in his music. He and some friends had broken into a hymn on one show, the audience stood up, and he marked it. People were hungry for it. A manager came up with the name, and the Gospel According to Jazz was born. By this episode he was on Chapter 4.

And the business side surprised him. He told Nomad that his most successful record on a major label doesn't hold a candle to what the gospel series has done, including owning his masters and being in demand everywhere from Belfast to Cape Town. Cut out the middleman, and suddenly going to Europe makes sense.

Content and delivery

Kirk had a clean way to explain the idea behind the series.

"The gospel is content and jazz is the delivery."

Kirk Whalum, 14:35

Think of a FedEx delivery: what is in the package is the message, and the package itself is jazz, with all its spontaneity and vulnerability of expression. Nomad noted something he saw over eight years on the road: Kirk doesn't beat people over the head with words. He leads by example, and people come up to him asking why he does what he does.

Whatever you believe, there is a lesson here for any player. Know what you are actually saying, then choose the delivery that carries it best.

The Whitney call and the hard choice

Kirk grew up in Memphis, went to Texas Southern in Houston, cut his teeth there, then moved to Los Angeles in 1987. In 1989 he started playing with Whitney Houston. As Kirk told it, the bandleader who brought him in made a clear pitch to Whitney: this is going to cost you, not because of my fee, but because I'm going to hire the best of the best, and in the long run you are going to benefit. Nomad called that music business 101 for every would-be music director.

Then came the offer to join, and Kirk was honestly ambivalent. He had been building his own thing since he was 22, playing his gig with his band in small clubs, finally landing a record deal, three records in. His trajectory wasn't steep, but it was upward. A long hiatus with Whitney looked like a diversion. People told him to think about how many more people he would reach. He knew Whitney's global pop audience wasn't the more sophisticated, slightly older audience his instrumental music was reaching.

It was only later, after The Bodyguard, that it paid off. Being "the guy who played the sax solo" became something he could leverage.

"The idea is to try to be who you are, but be as smart as you can to leverage those things to your benefit."

Kirk Whalum, 27:12

That is Luck = preparation + opportunity, with a long fuse. He was ready for the call, and he kept building his own thing until the call could work for him.

Have the come to Jesus moment with yourself

Nomad shared his own story. He always knew he was an artist and wrote his own songs, but he loved the studio and touring side and had more success there, so he went with it. Every young musician faces that decision, and has to be brutally honest about it.

Kirk agreed. You have to manage your expectations and have a hard conversation with yourself. How bad do you want the newest BMW, versus persevering on your own thing and building a narrative you can be proud of when you look your grandchildren in the face?

He was also honest that strategy isn't his strength. What drives him is feeling something, working hard to develop it, and conveying it. His view: you can make a really decent living playing music at a high level without bastardizing what you do. Nomad's version is the premise of the whole podcast. You can have a career as a solo artist or as a sideman. Decide which lane you want to drive in, and find out early if you can. If you find out late, that's okay too. It's all part of the journey.

Practice with a plan, and guard your time

Kirk still practices pretty much every day he isn't on a plane, and he keeps a practice journal on his phone, plus a written one. When Nomad caught up with him, his current phase was playing scales in groups of seven instead of eight, because a scale only has seven notes.

Nomad shared his own framework, TMI: technique, method, implementation. Technique gets your fingers moving. Method is how you think about scale and chord relationships. Implementation is going ahead and making music with it. Because in the end, you have to make music out of it.

Kirk's take on social media fits right in. He calls it, all at once, the greatest avenue and the greatest distraction ever created. Early on he decided it was worth investing in financially, and he keeps someone on retainer to handle it. He sees that as a business decision, and he thinks anyone should invest whatever is commensurate with what they can afford, because connections you can prove with real metrics are what you get to leverage.

He applied the same thinking to programming. Back in Nashville, he realized he didn't want to know that much about the recording software. Every hour in a manual is an hour he wasn't practicing, and you can't get that time back. Ask yourself where you are best served, and spend your time there. Nomad builds his own day the same way: early mornings for practice, meditation and working out, mornings for composing and producing, afternoons for media.

Three things every day

Kirk starts every day with three things: pursue God, pursue his craft, and work out and take care of his body. Nobody is guaranteed another thirty years, but you can feel good about yourself and be a clearer vessel for what you are here to do. He mentioned reading Miles Davis's book and seeing how hard it was for Miles to reverse what he had done to his body.

Nomad closed by thanking Kirk for the grace he showed him on the road, and said he tries to pass the same message on as a music director. Don't make it difficult. Be cool, be workable, be patient, go with the flow. That is Low maintenance / no drama, from a guy who learned it on the bandstand.

The takeaway

Getting dropped, getting the big call, choosing your lane: Kirk's career shows you can make every one of those moments work for you if you know who you are. Build your own thing, leverage what comes, invest where it counts and guard your time. Then keep practicing with a plan. If you are working toward that next call, start with the free Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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