February 21, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — "Pharez Whitted not only mentors Chicago Public School kids through Ravinia Festival's 'Reach-Teach-Play' programs, the jazz trumpeter’s Transient Journey album has been nominated for best jazz album at the upcoming 10th annual Independent Music Awards," writes Bill Zwecker in the Chicago Sun-Times. Winners
will be determined by a panel of 62 influential artist and industry
judges and will be announced in mid-March. Whitted is a 1982 graduate of DePauw University.
Access the item at the newspaper's website.
Released last summer by Owl Studios, Whitted's Transient Journey "represents a major event in his artistic life," writes the Chicago Tribune's Howard Reich. "It's also a significant development for anyone who values the most serious forms of jazz improvisation and composition."
Jay Harvey of the Indianapolis Star declared, “I've
admired Pharez 
Whitted's sure handed trumpet playing -- its fire, its
agility, its thoughtfulness -- since shortly after I moved to Indianapolis
in the late '80s and heard him spark the fusion group Decoy."
Whitted is a performer, composer, producer, and educator. He has performed with such notables as Nancy Wilson, Freddie Hubbard, Slide Hampton, Joe Lovano, Elvin Jones, Ahmad Jamal, Clark Terry, Branford Marsalis, Johnny Griffin, David “Fathead" Newman, Phil Woods, Monty Alexander, the Count Basie Orchestra, Jon Faddis and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, George Duke, John Mellencamp, Patti Austin, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Kirk Whalum, Ari Brown and Ramsey Lewis.
As a solo artist, he previously released two compact discs on the Motown/Mojazz record label.
After graduating from the DePauw University School of Music, Whitted earned a master's degree from Indiana University. He will perform as part of the the Tri-C JazzFest in Cleveland, as noted in this recent article.