Kenneth David Kirkland (September 28, 1955 – November 12, 1998) was an American pianist/keyboardist.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, United States, Kirkland was six when he first sat down at a piano keyboard. After years of Catholic schooling, Kirkland enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied classical piano performance, classical theory and composition. Kirkland’s first professional work came with Polish fusion violinist Michal Urbaniak, touring throughout Europe with his group in 1977. Coincidentally, his next high-profile gig was with another Eastern European jazz émigré, Miroslav Vitous. Kirkland is featured on Vitous’ ECM recordings First Meeting and Miroslav Vitous Group. In 1980, while Kirkland was on tour in Japan with Terumasa Hino, he met Wynton Marsalis, which began their long association.^[1] On Marsalis’s self-titled debut album, Kirkland shared the piano duties with one of his musical influences, Herbie Hancock,^[5] but was the sole pianist on Marsalis’s subsequent releases Think of One, Hothouse Flowers and Black Codes. After his association with Wynton Marsalis, Kirkland joined Branford Marsalis’s band. He is also on Marsalis’s funk band album Buckshot Lefonque. When Branford Marsalis assumed the high-visibility role of bandleader for NBC TV’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Kirkland became the band’s pianist.

On November 7, 1998, Kirkland attended Marsalis’s wedding in New Rochelle, New York. Kirkland was found dead in his Queens apartment on Friday, November 13, 1998.

The official doctor’s report listed his death as due to congestive heart failure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LyS_1NbUGg