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Wendy Kirkland
Wendy Kirkland (born 17 April 1968, Derbyshire) is an English pianist, Hammond organ player and singer.

Jazz Critic Dave Gelly of The Observer has described her as “a terrific pianist and singer; assured and full of surprises” while Clive Davis of The Sunday Times describes her as “Mellow and stylish,” while Nigel Jarrett of Jazz Journal says she is “a jazz pianist AND a jazz singer”. Jazzwise magazine calls her “convincing, zestful, swinging”, comparing her to “those such as herself; Diana Krall, Nina Simone, Blossom Dearie”. Both her albums have received four starred reviews from The Observer, Kind of Jazz, Jazz Views, The JazzMann while BBC Jazz presenter Linley Hamilton exclaimed “Wow. WOW! A cracker, and brilliantly delivered” after playing her track Pools on his weekly jazz show on BBC Radio Ulster.

Early life
Kirkland’s father, Robert, was a pianist working on the buoyant club scene in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire in the 1970s and 1980s, working with visiting acts such as Shane Fenton, Marti Caine, Roger DeCourcey, Keith Harris and Paul Shane as backing for their music acts. Her mother was always singing to the radio and joined choirs later. Kirkland began learning piano at age 10 alongside her younger sister and progressed through ABRSM piano grades. When she was 14, an old piano teacher left Robert some music in her will and this was the source of new sight reading, beginning with transcriptions of Dave Brubeck’s Time Out and Time Further Out albums. Kirkland played piano for tap and ballet classes from age 16 in order to pay back her grandmother’s loan for a new bike, continuing into her early twenties when club keyboard playing in pop and rock bands beckoned with much better earnings. She learned guitar in order to set up her own all-girl punk/indie band The Bodkinz which disbanded in 1993 as Kirkland graduated as a Mechanical Engineer and her career became more demanding. Jazz returned from the back burner as Kirkland attended Saturday sessions with Sheffield Jazz Workshops from 1999 and she left full time employment shortly after this, by way of a teaching degree to become a professional musician.

Professional Career
From 2000 Kirkland has worked on the UK jazz circuit with her duo featuring Pat Sprakes and trios featuring changing line-ups on drums and double bass. Kirkland’s piano trio and Hammond organ trio (Organik Trio) worked at jazz clubs and other venues whilst steadily building a profile, although Kirkland shied away from live or studio recording, never being 100% happy with the results. In 2012, Kirkland and Sprakes set up Chesterfield Jazz Club to bring the UK’s and the US’s finest musicians to work with them in a format based on the famous 1950s and 1960s jazz clubs such as Ronnie Scott’s Club whereby visiting musicians work with a house band. Numerous compliments from these visiting musicians encouraged Kirkland to strive for more recognition as a lead performer rather than as a ‘sideman’ or band member. Kirkland has worked with many artists ranging from Roger Beaujolais, Tony Kofi, Jim Mullen, Dave O’Higgins, Alan Barnes, Sheryl Bailey and Dennis Rollins MBE. During lockdown in 2020, after having all her tour dates cancelled for the album tour of The Music’s On Me as well as a collaboration with Dennis Rollins MBE involving Roy Budd’s films score for the film Get Carter arranged by her and Sprakes, Kirkland began a daily recording on piano, featuring one Latin American piece a day, broadcast around 5pm on Facebook. The series was entitled Latin Lockdowns and ran through until August 2020, a total of 86 pieces, more than 500k views in total by the end of the series. Sprakes joined Kirkland on around 80 of these and arranged the backing tracks to many of them. The series featured special guests; “The UK’s popular folk duo” Noddy Polkatramp on bass and Brian Clench on guitar (both Sprakes in disguise) as well as an army of hand puppet creatures who would introduce or perform alongside the duo. According to many Facebook viewers, Latin Lockdowns became the highlight of their otherwise lonely, dull or uncertain locked down day. In 2021 an Arts Council Lottery Funded bid to tour Latin Lockdowns as a ‘hybrid tour’ (part live stream and part in-person concert as restrictions were lifted) was successful and her sextet, which includes vibraphone virtuoso Roger Beaujolais, began this tour in May 2021. In June 2021 Kirkland fulfilled her ambition to play at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club itself, to a sold out audience, and was invited back in August 2021.

Personal life
Wendy Kirkland lives in Chesterfield, Derbyshire with her husband, Pat Sprakes, guitarist and bassist in her bands; they married in 2010.