The Flutician

About The Flutician

Kaylene has been playing flute since she was nine years old. She fell in love with Dave Brubeck at 11 and memorized "Blue Rondo a la Turk," along with the solos from famous flute players. Her influences were Hubert Laws and Dave Valentine. She studied flute with Sheridan Stokes. In honor of her father, Kaylene incorporates the instrument into her recorded music, and the flute is her soloing instrument of choice. You can hear her flute on ALL JAZZED UP!, where she solos on “One Note Samba,” “Girl from Ipanema,” “Wives & Lovers," "How Insensitive,” “Once I Loved,” and her original, “Runaway with Me.” On MY MAN, Peoples shines on “Take Five” “Spain,” “Nature Boy,” “So Nice,” “Time Traveler” with Bobby Lyle, “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” and “My Man.” On ROMANTIC BOSSA-NOVA, she plays on “Corcovado,” “Watch What Happens,” and “Waters of March”; and finally her holiday EP, CAROL OF THE BELLS, flute is peppered throughout the arrangements with Peoples soloing on four of the five Christmas songs. Other recordings with flute include “Imagine” on Chase Masterson's POP CULTURE HERO COALITION. And finally, flute solos on (her sophisticated pop group) Peoples Republic: A NEW RITE OF PASSAGE on the tracks “This Girl’s in Love” and (her original) “No Regrets.” Outside of her own recordings, Kaylene's flute can be heard on SPOCKS BEARD X, Bunny Brunel’s single, "Fusion Holidays," his CD INVENT YOUR FUTURE, "Night Streets," and seven tracks in all on the historical release, BASS BALL & BASS BALL 2. Between the two albums, she is featured playing flute on recordings with Stanley Clarke, Larry Dunn, Luisa Dunn, Armand Sabal-Lecco, Eric Giausserand, Alex Perdigon, Virgil Donati, John Wackerman, & Steve Ferrone. Kaylene is also the flutist for the Grammy-nominated jazz-fusion band CAB. "I did a radio interview following the release of MY MAN, and the host called me 'The Flutician' . . . well, it stuck!" —Kaylene Peoples

Fun Facts

• Never Give Up!: When Kaylene was in 4th grade, her music teacher told her father that she should never play music. According to him, Mr. Ferris, she had absolutely no musical talent and was obviously tone death. But was she? In class, Kaylene could barely get a sound out of her instrument. Why? because her flute was defective. Not knowing much about the instrument, Peoples was given a flute that was in disrepair; it was a gift from her uncle Ray. The flute used to belong to him. Unbeknownst to her parents, they just assumed the instrument was in working order until Kaylene's father took the instrument into an instrument repair store and discovered that that old "Bundy" flute was beyond fixing. Even the technician could not get a sound out of it. That's when Kaylene's parents purchased her a Gemeinhardt student model flute. From there, she excelled in the instrument and still plays flute to this day! So Kaylene's motto is . . . "NEVER EVER GIVE UP!"
• Top Songs Recorded with Flute by Kaylene: "Nature Boy" by Nat King Cole, "Time Traveler" by Bobby Lyle," "Blue Rondo a la Turk" by Dave Brubeck, & "One Note Samba" by Antonio Carlos Jobim
• I was told I sucked, but that didn't stop me. : "Ok . . . it was a defective instrument. We fixed the problem and all was forgotten. Well, not really because I still remember!" Ray's flute sits on the mantle as a reminder, go for your dreams in spite of what other people say or think, just do what you were put on this earth to do!