GEORGE WHITTY

Grammy-award winning keyboardist George Whitty has spent 30 years playing on the road with the Brecker Brothers, Herbie Hancock, David Sanborn, Richard Bona, Chaka Khan, Sadao Watanabe, and a dozen others, and his resume as a session musician and producer includes some of the best-selling records of all time: Santana’s “Supernatural” (with Dave Matthews), Celine Dion’s “Falling Into You” and “These are Special Times”, and more than 300 other CDs.

As a producer/keyboardist, his Grammy-winning streak began with Chaka Khan’s “The Woman I Am” in 1992 and extends through 3 award-winning releases with the Brecker Brothers, most recently Randy Brecker’s “34th and Lex”, 2004’s Grammy-winner for Contemporary Jazz Record of the Year. In April 2010, he completed work on several tracks for Herbie Hancock’s CD “The Imagine Project”, programming Herbie’s live rig for the tour as well. 

As a composer, he’s written for hundreds of episodes of television and several award-winning films, composing for a dozen shows from “The Road to Stardom with Missy Elliot” to “As the World Turns”, for which he was nominated for a 2006 Emmy award. In 2014 he won an Emmy award for scoring the long-running series “All My Children”. 

George recently finished the score to the feature film comedy “The Getdown”, which is in the rotation on Showtime, and has recently been working with Herbie Hancock, both as keyboardist in Herbie’s band at the Hollywood Bowl for 2012s “Concert for Peace”, and as an arranger/keyboardist, recently completing several orchestral arrangements for a duo CD for Herbie and classical pianist Lang Lang. George arranged 3 classic Herbie pieces for the LA Philharmonic’s 100th Anniversary Concert at the Hollywood Bowl, featuring Herbie and his band, and for a performance by Herbie at Disney hall in Los Angeles. In March of 2020 he arranged several pieces for full orchestra for Residente’s sold-out performance with the LA Phil, the night after 2 more pieces he arranged for Herbie Hancock premiered at Disney Hall. In May, 2018, George and his trio Third Rail played a nearly sold-out 3 nights at the Cotton Club in Tokyo. 

In 2020 George finished production and writing on a duo CD for Eric Marienthal and Randy Brecker, “Double Dealin’”, in addition to a number of other CD projects. In addition to all of his studio playing, producing and arranging projects, George maintains a busy schedule as a touring artist, currently playing around the world with Frank Gambale’s band, David Sanborn, Randy Brecker, Armand Sabal-Lecco (Paul Simon bassist), and Chris Minh Doky, in addition to ongoing Third Rail projects. He is currently mixing and mastering a steady stream of CDs, conducting clinics and master classes and teaching around the world. In the summer of 2015 he became the Jazz Piano instructor at Artistworks.com, the leading online lessons website. In between all his musical activities, he enjoys life in the mountains outside Los Angeles with his 2 boys and 2 cats.