Revel Music Series - Josh Kline

The Band:

Eric Wurzelbacher - saxophone / hostAaron Jacobs - bassPhil Tipton - drums

Chris Caporale - keys

Josh Kline - saxophone/ guest:

Born in 1993, Josh was raised in the small town of Delmont, Pennsylvania, about half an hour east of Pittsburgh. At the age of eight, he began playing the saxophone after watching an episode of the television show Reading Rainbow where LeVar Burton interviewed jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman. He continued to study privately in the Pittsburgh area until 2011 when he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to study jazz at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). There he was exposed to the music of a much broader field of jazz musicians. A major point of demarcation came when he listened to John Coltrane’s 1964 album Crescent for the first time. Inspired by the lyricism and power of Coltrane’s playing on that record and others like it, Josh became deeply enamored by jazz of the 1960s.In October of 2013, Josh and two other jazz musicians from CCM were selected by former UC President Santa Ono to perform at the Library of Congress for the National Competitiveness Forum in Washington D.C. The following year in 2014, Josh had the privilege of performing with the world-famous Glenn Miller Orchestra when they passed through Cincinnati. Also in 2014, he performed with the CCM Jazz Ensemble at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Lincoln Center in New York City, where the ensemble performed one of his big band arrangements as well. Other big band arrangements of his have been performed at the 2016 Jazz Educators Network annual conference in Louisville, KY, and at the 2016 CCM Fall Polish Festival. In the summer of 2016, he also performed at the NAACP Annual Convention in Cincinnati.Since graduating from CCM in the spring of 2015, Josh has continued to live and work in Cincinnati. In addition to fronting his own groups, he is the tenor saxophonist of the avant-garde garage-jazz trio Animal Mother, which frequently tours the midwest and east coast. This group features avant-garde original music as well as covered material from artists such as Nirvana, David Bowie, and Milton Nascimento. In the spring of 2016, Animal Mother was featured in a review by the Washington Post for their performance at Twins Jazz Club in Washington D.C. (Click here to read the review!).Other notable performances include appearances at the 2016 Midpoint Music Festival (Cincinnati, OH), 2016 Columbus Jazz and Ribs Festival (Columbus, OH), and dates at Elastic Arts (Chicago), The Whistler (Chicago), The Lily Pad (Boston), Canterbury House (Ann Arbor, MI), The Trumpet Blossom (Iowa City), Wind-Up Space (Baltimore), and The Bop-Stop (Cleveland).Josh is also a member of the Retro-Nouveau Quartet, with fellow Cincinnati jazz musicians Dan Karlsberg on piano, Mike Sharfe on bass, and Melvin Broach on drums. This group can be heard performing regularly at Cincinnati venues such as The Greenwich and Washington Platform Saloon and Restaurant. Josh also teaches private lessons in the Cincinnati area and can be reached via the contact page on this website.Besides playing jazz, Josh is very passionate about mathematics, having earned a minor in mathematics from UC. He is also a die-hard Pittsburgh Pirates fan, an avid bowler, and a dedicated musky fisherman.”

Host or Publisher Eric Wurzelbacher