Kye Palmer

Kye Palmer
Kye Palmer, trumpet
Background information
Born	(1962-11-10) November 10, 1962 (age 54)
Origin	Redlands, California, United States
Genres	Jazz, Latin, rockabilly
Occupation(s)	Instrumental studio musician, educator
Instruments	Trumpet, flugelhorn
Years active	1981 – present
Associated acts	Brian Setzer Orchestra The Tonight Show Band

Kye Palmer is a trumpet player who is a Los Angeles studio musician, most notable as a former member of The Tonight Show Band from 2006 to 2009. On April 10, 2006, Palmer replaced Lee Thornburg in The Tonight Show Band and was there for the last part of Kevin Eubanks's tenure with The Tonight Show. He has recorded on several Grammy Award nominated or winning projects over the past 20 years.

Palmer, a native Californian originally from Redlands, started being interested in music at the age of 7. An early source of inspiration for him was being a part of the well known Stan Kenton Band Clinics at the University of Redlands. After high school he first attended California State University, Long Beach for a year to study music. He transferred to Fullerton College and played trumpet on the Down Beat award-winning LP Time Tripping while playing in the college jazz groups for a year. After two years attending Fullerton College he transferred and earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Cal Poly Pomona. During that time that he was working professionally as a trumpet player he was also employed at Honeywell Corporation cross-checking wire schematics for U.S. Department of Defense products the company manufactured. He studied privately with such artists as trumpeter Bobby Shew and jazz vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake. "Of the 1,500 or so people that studied with me, Kye was one of those 20 or 25 players that was really important, who understood the music", Charlie Shoemake says. Palmer names Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard as his principal influences.