Walter White - Oakland University Music

Walter White
Applied Jazz Trumpet

Contact
wcwhite@oakland.edu

Walter White grew up in a musical family near Detroit, Michigan and was inspired at an early age by the music of Ludwig Von Beethoven and Louis Armstrong. Starting on his brother’s Boy Scout bugle at age five, Walter learned to play baritone and tuba before settling on trumpet by age nine. Trained at Interlochen Center For the Arts, The Juilliard School, the University of Miami, and The Banff Centre, Walter’s former teachers include William Vacchiano, John Lindenau, Vincent Cichowicz, Mel Broiles, Leon Rapier, Carmine Caruso, Jerome Amend, and Kenny Wheeler.

Walter’s dynamic trumpet playing led him to work with many of the top names in music including Bob James, Dave Holland, the Mingus Big Band, the Woody Herman Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Gunther Schuller, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, The Jaco Pastorius Big Band, Arturo Sandoval, and
David Matthew’s Manhattan Jazz Orchestra, with whom he has recorded seven award-winning records for the Japanese market. During the early 1990's, Walter toured and recorded with his boyhood hero, trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, and is featured on the CD, ‘Live from London’, playing The Fox Hunt, a sizzling duet with Maynard recorded at the world-famous jazz club, Ronnie Scott's, in London’s Soho district.

Currently, Walter serves as leader of the Walter White Jazz Quartet, the Walter White Electric Quintet, and his 11-piece group, Walter White & Small Medium @ Large, with whom he recently released the recording, Breaking Good. Walter's playing has graced the sound tracks of records, movies, and television; most notably network sitcoms TAXI, and The Cosby Show. As a recording studio owner, Walter produces music for records, television, and film, and has authored the Walter White Long-tone Accompaniment, a play-along CD for music practice, which has garnered worldwide acclaim.

Walter has composed over forty original works for large jazz ensembles and has been commissioned to write for jazz groups, chamber groups, choirs, woodwind and brass ensembles, as well as symphony orchestra.

Walter White is a Yamaha Performing Artist and Clinician.