Jay Barnet Beckenstein (born May 14, 1951) is an American
saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pro ...
Suffern, New York
Suffern is a village that was incorporated in 1796 in the town of Ramapo in Rockland County, New York. Suffern is located 31 miles northwest of Manhattan. As of the 2010 census, Suffern's population was 10,723.
Music career
Beckenstein was born in Long Island, New York, to a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family. His mother, Lorraine, was an opera singer and his father, Leonard, loved
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
and introduced him to
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
and
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.
Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most ...
when he was a baby. He started playing the piano at age five when he moved to
Farmingdale, New York
Farmingdale is an incorporated village on Long Island within the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, New York. The population was 8,189 as of the 2010 Census.
The Lenox Hills neighborhood is adjacent to Bethpage State Park and the rest of the ...
. He was given his first saxophone at the age of seven. In his senior year of high school, he and his family moved to Germany. He attended and graduated from Nurnberg American High School in 1969. He has said that being Jewish in Germany was positive at the time. However, he has recalled that he once saw an old photo of an elderly neighbor in his SS Nazi uniform while visiting him and he never went back. He received a college degree in music from the
University at Buffalo
The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...
in 1973. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie once played with the college band while Beckenstein was a band member.
They soon recruited 16-year-old keyboardist Tom Schuman and recorded their debut album. However, due to lack of funds, the record was going to be their last album until they gave it away and sold 100,000 copies. From there, they got a deal and released their next album in 1979.
In 2000, Beckenstein released his first solo album, ''Eye Contact'', which charted No. 23 on the
Top Contemporary Jazz Albums
The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in ''Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the ''Billboard'' charts, pr ...
.
Beckenstein played the saxophone solo on American
progressive metal
Progressive metal (sometimes shortened to prog metal) is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified guitar-driven sound of the former with the more experimental, cerebral ...
Eye Contact
Eye contact occurs when two people look at each other's eyes at the same time. In humans, eye contact is a form of nonverbal communication and can have a large influence on social behavior. Coined in the early to mid-1960s, the term came from ...
'' ( Windham Hill)
With Bob James
* 1981 ''All Around the Town''
* 1981 ''Sign of the Times''
* 1982 ''Hands Down''
With Dream Theater
* 1992 ''Images and Words''
* 1993 ''Live at the Marquee''
* 1998 ''Once in a LIVEtime''
* 2000 ''Through Her Eyes''
* 2001 ''Live Scenes from New York''
With Jason Miles
* 1996 ''Mr. X''
* 2000 ''A Love Affair: The Music of Ivan Lins''
* 2000 ''Celebrating the Music of Weather Report''
* 2002 ''Brazilian Nights''
* 2002 ''To Grover, With Love''
* 2006 ''What's Going On?''
With others
* 1980 ''Orleans'', Orleans
* 1989 ''Away from Home'',
David Broza
David Simon Berwick Broza ( he, דויד ברוזה; born September 4, 1955) is an Israeli singer-songwriter. His music mixes modern pop with Spanish music.
Biography
David Broza was born in Haifa, Israel. His father was an Israeli–British bus ...
* 1990 ''Extremities'', Tom Schuman
* 1991 ''Natural Selection'', Dave Samuels
* 1995 ''Basia on Broadway'',
Basia
Barbara Stanisława Trzetrzelewska (Polish: , born 30 September 1954), better known as Basia, is a Polish singer-songwriter and recording artist noted for her Latin-inspired jazz-pop music. She began singing professionally in various Polish ban ...
* 1995 ''David Broza'', David Broza
* 1997 ''Deep in the Night'', Rick Rhodes
* 1999 ''Listen'', Chuck Loeb
* 1999 ''Somewhere in the Night'', Mercedes Hall
* 2001 ''Butterfly'',
Special EFX
Chieli Minucci (born April 17, 1958) is an American guitarist who co-founded the band Special EFX.
Career
His father, Ulpio Minucci, was a concert pianist and composer who wrote the music to the 1955 song " Domani."
Chieli Minucci started Spec ...
* 2002 ''Urban Life'', The V.I.P. Club
* 2003 ''In the Name of Love'', Freddy Cole
* 2012 ''The Fusion Syndicate'', The Fusion Syndicate