Ken Powe

Ken Powe is a recording artist and music producer from Birmingham, Alabama. He is an alumnus of Parker High School and The University of Alabama where he earned a BA and MA in English and later an MBA. 

Ken studied classical piano at age 8 and began his experience in live performance by playing in recitals. He learned to play other instruments in elementary and high school, where he was required to learn the rudiments of every brass and string instrument and sing lead tenor in his high school concert choir which toured nationally. By the age of 16, he began playing trombone professionally with the Birmingham Heritage Band—a group of Big Band jazz players composed of instrumentalists who actually played with Golden Age Jazz legends like Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Erskine Hawkins—and played piano and organ for Gospel groups and churches. 

After college, Ken played keyboards in cover bands and stood out to audiences and other musicians because of his signature classical and jazz influenced improvisational style. This led to him becoming a side man and backup keyboardist to some of the most well-known Pop, R&B, Blues and Gospel artists in the 90’s when they were on tour in the Southeast. He began recording with some of these artists and then used his musical knowledge and versatility to become a music producer and Vice President/A&R of a record label that specialized in Urban music. 

From broadcast videos and live recordings, people in other countries began to take notice of Ken’s skills as a classical, jazz and Gospel pianist. In 2003, he began performing solo concerts on the grand piano in Europe, traveling to Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, France and Great Britain. Until the pandemic year of 2020, he would perform in Europe every year to standing room only audiences in cathedrals, palaces and concert halls. 

In 2009, Ken began a new journey into becoming a solo recording artist when he wrote, produced, engineered and played every instrument on his debut album, Journey (as Kenneth Powe), a compilation of acoustic and electronic spa music. After Journey, Ken wrote and produced songs for many Smooth Jazz artists from his home and later released his own Smooth Jazz album in 2016, Conception. This album, though not very well known except to a number of college radio listeners in the US, was nonetheless critically acclaimed and earned Ken his first Grammy consideration in 2017. His second Grammy consideration came in 2018 with the release of his second Smooth Jazz album, Misinformation Age. His breakout hit, “First Love,” came with his fourth studio album, Steppin’, which garnered much praise and a following on YouTube along with unprecedented commercial success. To date, Ken recorded, produced and independently released five Smooth Jazz albums as a solo artist over a period of seven years.