Jay Beckenstein

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Jay Beckenstein (born May 14, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York) is a saxophone player, smooth jazz artist and founder of Spyro Gyra. He also owned a studio in New York that was called BearTracks Studios.

He also played the saxophone solo on American progressive metal band Dream Theater's "Another Day", from the album Images and Words and single version of song "Through her Eyes", from the album Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. He also played a solo part in "Take Away My Pain" on the live album Once in a Livetime as well as "Another Day" during the performance of Metropolis 2000: Scenes from New York.

1 Biography
2 Discography
- 2.1 With Spyro Gyra
- 2.2 Solo Efforts
3 Instruments
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Jay's mother was an opera singer and his father's love of jazz introduced him to Charlie Parker and Lester Young when he was a baby. He started playing the piano at age 5 when he moved to Farmingdale, LI. He was given his first saxophone at the age of 7.

[edit] Discography

[edit] With Spyro Gyra

Beckenstein has played on all Spyro Gyra albums.

[edit] Solo Efforts

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Eye Contact (2000)

[edit] Instruments

Beckenstein plays alto, soprano and tenor saxophones. Prior to the late 1990s he played Yamaha saxophones. However, he later switched to instruments made by LA Sax. His current chosen alto is the "Saxgourmet" [1] from LA Sax[2], which is made from high-copper brass, fitted with a Beechler Diamond Star 6 mouthpiece and Vandoren #3 Reeds. His soprano is a Yanagisawa fitted with a Selmer C* mouthpiece and Van Doren #3 reeds. His tenor is made by LA Sax.