Kyle Eastwood

Kyle Eastwood at the Jazz Cafe, London

Kyle Eastwood (born May 19, 1968) is an American jazz musician. He studied film at the University of Southern California for two years before embarking on a music career. After becoming a session player in the early '90s and leading his own quartet, he released his first solo CD, From There to Here, in 1998. His most recent CD, Metropolitain, was released 2009-06-02 by Rendezvous. Eastwood plays acoustic and electric as well as double bass. He is the son of Filmmaker and actor Clint Eastwood.

Musical background

Eastwood comes from a musical family, as explained in an October 27, 2006, from The Independent: "When I told my father, film actor/director Clint Eastwood, I wanted to be a musician he was happy about it. Music has always been important to my family. My parents gave me my taste in music and my love of jazz from an early age. My father plays piano, my mother used to play, and my mother's mother was a music teacher at Northwestern University in Illinois."^[1]

It comes as little surprise, then, that music was a prominent fixture in the Eastwood home. According to his biography with Hopper Management,^[2] Eastwood grew up listening to jazz records by legends such as Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk, and the Stan Kenton Big Band with his parents, both jazz lovers. Eastwood attended the Monterey Jazz Festival numerous times with his parents, as well. "One advantage of having a famous father was I got to go backstage", Eastwood explained in an interview^[3] conducted by stepmother Dina Ruiz Eastwood. "I met a lot of artists, greats like Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan. Looking back on that, I can see how much the musicians I met there influenced my career."

Eastwood began playing electric bass in high school, learning R&B, Motown, and reggae tunes by ear. After studying with French bassist Bunny Brunel, he began playing gigs around the New York and Los Angeles areas, eventually forming the Kyle Eastwood Quartet, who contributed to 1996's Eastwood After Hours: Live at Carnegie Hall,^[4] a concert saluting Clint Eastwood and his love of jazz. His father has always been supportive of, and interested in, his work, as Eastwood told The Independent: "As far as my father is concerned, as long as I was serious about my music career, he was supportive of me."

Two years later, in 1998, Sony released his first CD, From There to Here, a collection of both jazz standards and original compositions. After signing with the UK's Candid Records in 2004, Eastwood moved to Dave Koz's label, Rendezvous, which has released his last two albums: 2005's Paris Blue, and 2006's Now.

In addition to his solo albums, Eastwood has also contributed music to seven of his father's films: The Rookie (1990), Mystic River (2002), Million Dollar Baby (2004), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), Changeling (2008), and Gran Torino (2008).

Other work

Eastwood provided the voice of "Daddy" in the 8th PBS ident, "Daddy and Son." (2007) and the voice of DJ Andy Wright for the PC game "The Movies" (2005).

He was nominated with partner Michael Stevens for a 2006 Chicago Film Critics Association award for Original Score (Letters from Iwo Jima).

"Song for Ruth" on 2006's Now is dedicated to his grandmother, Ruth Eastwood.

His father, Clint Eastwood, makes a cameo on his 2005 release Paris Blue, whistling on the track "Big Noise (from Winnetka)."

Family life

Eastwood is the son of actor-director Clint Eastwood and model Maggie Johnson.^[5] He was born in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in Carmel, California. He is the elder brother of actress, model and fashion designer Alison Eastwood. He has one daughter, Graylen (b. 1994), with ex-wife Laura Gomez.

Discography

Filmography

Composer/Performer/Arranger

• Gran Torino (2008)
• Changeling (2008) - arrangements
• Rails & Ties (2007) - music by
• Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) - composer, score with Michael Stevens
• Flags of Our Fathers (2006) - arranger
• Million Dollar Baby (2004) - composer, "Boxing Baby", "Solferino", "Blue Diner"
• Mystic River (2002) - composer, "Cosmo", "Black Emerald Blues"
• Regarding Henry (1991) - uncredited performer
• The Rookie (1990) - composer "Red Zone" with Michael Stevens

Actor

• L'Heure d'été (2007)
• The Bridges of Madison County (1995) - James Rivers Band
• Honkytonk Man (1982) - Whit Stovall
• Bronco Billy (1980) - orphan (uncredited)
• The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) - Josey's son (uncredited)

References

External links

• KyleEastwood.com
• Kyle Eastwood on MySpace
• Kyle Eastwood videos at YouTube
• Kyle Eastwood at the Internet Movie Database
• All About Jazz
• Kyle Eastwood at Allmusic
• "How Do I Look?" interview with Ben Walsh for The Independent
• "Kyle Eastwood: Going His Way" article by Mike Zwerin for the International Herald Tribune
• Hopper Management Biography