Mark Whitfield Jr

Mark Whitfield II was born in March of 1990 in Brooklyn, NY, and raised in Baton Rouge, LA. Mark has been fortunate to be surrounded by music since he was a child. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, in the spring of 2011, Mark moved back to the NYC area, attended Manhattan School of Music for a semester until joining alto saxophonists Myron Walden and Kenny Garrett’s respective bands while still playing around the New York jazz scene. In February 2013, Mark had the pleasure of recording with Kenny Garrett on his Grammy® nominated album, Pushing the World Away. While still playing with Myron, and subbing with countless other names in the jazz world, Mark filled in on a gig with Sean Jones in the Summer of 2014. A couple months later, Mark joined Sean Jones’ band and has since been fortunate enough to perform with the likes of Orrin Evans, Wallace Roney, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Aaron Goldberg, Christian Scott, Tia Fuller, Charnett Moffett, Terence Blanchard, Brian Jackson, Nicholas Payton, Chico Freeman, Manuel Valera, Wayne Escoffery and Jeremy Pelt amongst many others in jazz. Mark is now a mainstay in the NYC jazz scene while travelling around the world and USA with Sean Jones, Brian Jackson, Black Art Jazz Collective, Manuel Valera, Orrin Evans, Kenny Garrett, Terence Blanchard, Nicholas Payton and others. Mark is an endorser of Canopus drums.