Kim Pensyl

Kim Pensyl stands out as a skilled pop-jazz keyboardist and trumpeter who draws steady crowds on the contemporary jazz scene. Over the years he has issued numerous commercially successful albums on Optimism, GRP, and Shanachie. In his youth he explored several instruments, taking up trumpet at age twelve and later electric bass in a rock ensemble before concentrating on keyboards. He studied at Ohio State University, where he performed with the school’s jazz ensemble, then completed a degree at the Eastman School of Music and spent additional time at Cal State Northridge. In the Los Angeles region he worked with an array of ensembles directed by Al Hirt, Don Ellis, Hubert Laws, Gerald Wilson, and Louie Bellson, and he also performed trumpet in Guy Lombardo’s group. Following several years of session activity, Pensyl launched his solo career in 1988 with his debut recording as a leader, by which point he had refined an atmospheric lite-jazz approach.

The three volumes of Pensyl Sketches appeared in 1988, 1989, and 1990 and achieved strong sales, with the first two sets featuring Pensyl alone in the studio. Throughout the remainder of the 1990s and into the following decade he introduced unexpected directions to his catalog, among them the 1993 piano-synth holiday project A Kim Pensyl Christmas, the 1996 collection Under the Influence that reinterpreted several of his favored pop and R&B numbers, the 1998 release Quiet Cafe that placed greater emphasis on his trumpet work, and the 2001 album At the Moment that cast him even more prominently as a trumpeter within a hard-bop framework. In 2008 he issued When Katie Smiles, a set of smooth jazz-inflected originals recorded at the Steinway.