Reverend Whalum had served as Senior Pastor of Olivet Baptist Church in Memphis from 1969 to 1999, when his son, current school board member, Kenneth Whalum Jr., took over. Whalum Senior was also a personnel director for the U.S. Postal Service. Just this week legislation was passed to re-name he postal facility on South Third Street in Whalum's honor.

Kirk Whalum noted recently that his father was the one who inspired him to work on behalf of young people: "My dad was one who gave a lot of his time to mentoring young -- especially young African-American boys and young men, mostly through the YMCA and then through his church that he pastored for years. That's definitely something that is very important to me and it's something that I'm constantly -- which we should all do -- I'm constantly analyzing how I spend my time to see how I can do a better job at connecting with some of these kids."

Whalum recently recorded the third chapter of The Gospel According To Jazz on October 13th at Reid Temple AME Church in Glenn Dale, Maryland. Special guests included George Duke, Kevin Whalum, a Doc Powell, Lalah Hathaway, Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum and Kirk's bass-playing son Kyle Whalum.

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