Scott Wilkie - A Much Under-recognized Keyboardist

[AROIOS]

I came across Scott's music back in the late 90's when he was demo'ing for Roland. To my untrained ears, he's got all the coolest sounding keyboard tricks and then some. Compared to other more recognized players in Smooth Jazz like Brian Culbertson, Scott balances the commercial nature of Smooth Jazz and musicality (yeah, I know purists are gonna sneer over that) better.

 

Some of his tunes are quite popular among piano players in South Korea, like this one:

 

It reminds me so much of a very tasteful demo tune installed on a lot of Yamaha keyboards:

 

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Scott turned out to be the author of this tune (Yamaha named it "Take Off"). I actually prefer it over Scott's "Water Balloons". Scott tried a bit too hard either to spice it up or to distinguish it from the Yamaha demo tune, which came at the cost of the balance between density of concepts and musicality.

 

Btw, another Scott (Tibbs) that frequently demo'ed for Roland is also a very tasty player. I wish he had more exposure and recognition that he deserved too.