b. 12 December 1950, Liverpool, Lancashire, England. Whitehead had clarinet lessons as a child and played in a folk group at school before reading law at university. In 1976, he turned professional playing tenor saxophone and in the following year formed South Of The Border, which he led with Glenn Cartledge (guitar), which won the Greater London Arts Association jazz competition. In the years that followed he worked with various bands including Nucleus and Graham Collier’s Band before forming his own outfit Borderline (1980) for which he wrote much of the music. In 1984, he joined Ashley Slater’s Loose Tubes, becoming an integral part of that pioneering outfit. In the late 80s, Whitehead worked with Harry Beckett’s quintet and Jim Mullen’s Meantime. He formed his own quartet in 1991, featuring Dave Barry (drums), Peter Jacobsen (piano) and Arnie Somogyi (double bass), recording a live album (Authentic) which was later released on Ronnie Scott’s Jazz House label. Whitehead subsequently received a commission from the Arts Council of Great Britain to write and develop a suite of music on the island of St. Agnes in the Isles Of Scilly, leading to the release of 1994’s Silence Between Waves. The 1999 follow-up Personal Standards was an engaging and accessible collection of contemporary standards such as ‘My Heart Will Go On’, ‘Dancing In The Streets’, and ‘My Girl’. Whitehead continues to play and record with a wide range of musicians, including collaborations with classical composer Colin Riley under the HomeMade Orchestra moniker, and an album with the Giovanni Mirabassi Quartet.