Jay Beckenstein

Alto (and sometimes soprano) saxophonist Jay Beckenstein founded the highly successful crossover jazz outfit Spyro Gyra in 1974 and led the group throughout more than a quarter-century tenure. Beckenstein grew up in a musical family -- his mother was an opera singer, his father a jazz buff -- and began playing the saxophone at age seven, joining school bands and playing both jazz and R&B. After graduating high school, Beckenstein and his friend, keyboardist Jeremy Wall, moved to Buffalo, where Beckenstein studied music at SUNY-Buffalo. Beckenstein and Wall began to headline th...