White was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, US[3] and from the age of three to eight lived in the Philippines with a final year living in Japan before returning to the US.[4] During senior year high school in Virginia Beach White joined a band with Natalie Prass,[5] before moving to Richmond, Virginia to study jazz at Virginia Commonwealth University.[6]
Following graduation White remained in Richmond and in 2005 founded the Patchwork Collective with a goal to bring creative music together regardless of genre.[7] The group primarily focused on hosting a wide range of live performances including Jandek, who in 2007 approached the Patchwork Collective to promote a rare US show at the Firehouse in Richmond.[8]
Career
Fight the Big Bull
In 2006 White founded Fight the Big Bull, a Richmond, Virginia based improvisatory jazz ensemble with two of their 2010 recordings selected for NPR's best of the year lists.[9][10]
The band's original configuration, called simply Fight the Bull, was a trio with drummer Pinson Chanselle and trombonist Bryan Hooten. The group was subsequently expanded to eight players and collaborated with Chicago saxophonist Ken Vandermark[11] and in 2010 released the album All is Gladness in the Kingdom with NYC-based slide trumpeter and composer Steven Bernstein following a 10-day residency that Bernstein undertook in Richmond.[12] They also collaborated with alternative folk singer David Karsten Daniels, with White providing arrangement to his critically well-received 2010 Thoreau project I Mean to Live Here Still. A performance with Daniels at the NYC club La Poisson Rouge was reviewed by the New York Times.[13]
White released his debut album Big Inner in August 2012, which the New York Times called "a dramatic pop-gospel record that hits extremes of the mood spectrum."[15]Big Inner debuted at #19 on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart,[16] and by the end of 2012, White had been named eMusic's Breakthrough Artist of 2012,[17]Paste magazine's Best New Act of 2012,[18] and a Consequence of Sound Rookie of the Year,[19] and Big Inner had appeared on multiple best of 2012 lists.[20][21] Following the album's initial release via Spacebomb White then signed with Domino who released the album worldwide in January 2013,[22] and it received five stars from The Guardian[23] and was called "One of the great albums of modern Americana" by Uncut magazine.[24]
K Bay, White's third record, was announced on Lauren Laverne's BBC Radio 6 Music breakfast show along with a debut of the album's first single "Genuine Hesitation". The following year, the album was included on the shortlist for the inaugural Newlin Music Prize in Richmond, VA.[30]
After meeting back stage of London's Queen Elizabeth Hall at David Byrne's Meltdown Festival in August 2015,[37] White teamed up with American visual artists and musician Lonnie Holley, to make Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection.[38] The album was released by Spacebomb and Jagjaguwar in 2021.
