Biography

Recently signed to the label, Verve/Universal.  Brenna is working David Foster, Walter Afanasieff, Greg Wells, Tony Berg, and Jay Landers on her debut album.

Brenna has been a huge part of the resurgence of “Jazz” being celebrated in the LA music scene by young people.  She is known in LA for taking restaurants/clubs and turning them into a standing room only scene from an old movie with dancers, costumes changes and her “little big band” of the elite young jazz masters in the country.

She was the creator/producer of “Jazz Night” at The W Hotel in Hollywood for 3 years every Sunday night leading her band.  She gained a huge celebrity following. Everyone from Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Michael Bolton, Michael Buble, Wayne Brady, Justin Beiber to Carly Rea Jepson are regular supporters.

This Holiday 2013, Brenna and her band will be doing a series of performances on Larry Ellison’s new island of Lanai for his guests for Christmas/New Years Holiday season.

She is the go to girl for celebrity private events in Hollywood.  She did Gene Simmons wedding, Hugh Hefner’s wedding and Nygel Lythgone’s wedding.  She did the Turner Classic Film Festivals 2012 and 2013. Her band recently performed at The Black and White Ball in San Fransisco with Cyndi Lauper, Janelle Monet and Paul Simon to support the Symphony’s vital and multifaceted music education programmes, which supports more than 75,000 Bay Area elementary, middle, and high school students.

She is passionate about working with at risk kids and young adults in need of hope through music/arts education programs.  She regularly contributes to a long list of non profits and preforming arts based charities in Los Angeles.

Born and raised in Kansas City.  Brenna was a musical sponge as a child, playing the piano by ear since the age of two and started working as a professional theater kid at 11 years old doing regional theater throughout the Midwest.

The smell of coffee and cigarettes in old greenrooms is where she feels most at home.  Singers like Nancy Wilson, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Ruth Brown, Etta James, Oleta Adams, Nina Simone, Whitney Houston, Barbara Streisand and Cab Calloway are her biggest inspirations.

“Throughout my life, I’ve often felt like I was born in the wrong time,” says Whitaker. “But now, I feel like I was born in this era for a reason.”