Justin Young, Instrumental and Smooth jazz Artist
He is a Michigan native and Seattle-based saxophonist who started playing the saxophone at the tender age of nine. His career took off after winning the 2007 Capital Jazz New Artist Challenge in Columbia, Maryland, and since then he has been a steady favorite of the smooth/contemporary jazz listening audience, and is captivating fans and concert goers at jazz venues with his soulful funk-infused style of smooth jazz music. His latest album/CD, “Blue Soul” was released in January 2017. Meet Smooth Jazz Saxophonist – Justin Young
Born in Warren, Michigan
Genre: Smooth/Contemporary Jazz, Soul, Pop
Justin Young sounds utterly natural when he plays, as if his extraordinary saxophone talent never needed formal training. But those mellifluous lines of soulful notes come through years of study, training and commitment to his love of music, as well as a constant desire to move forward.
Born in 1980 in Warren, MI, just a few minutes outside Detroit, Young grew up in a musical household. His father, Jim Young, led a band called Kaleidoscope and would often rehearse the group in the family room.
“I was seeing and hearing drummers and keyboardists and vocalists, and hearing how all the sounds meshed together. It was always in the back of my mind,” Young said in an interview at his home in Edmond, Okla. “It was in the blood, and plus Detroit was so eclectic at the time, you know, everything from R&B to pop and Top 40 and Motown – just a melting pot of different sounds, and I was absorbing it all.”
That fertile environment, both at home and all around him in Detroit, gave Young a world-class musical education. He picked up drums in elementary school and started hearing the music that would inform his life and work: saxophonists Maceo Parker, Lenny Pickett and Gerald Albright, along with superstar pop, funk and jazz acts like Earth, Wind and Fire, Boney James, The Gap Band, Herbie Hancock, the Commodores and Michael Jackson. Then his father suggested that he try the saxophone, and a few months later, Young was playing Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You” in a 4th grade talent show.
Having found his true musical love, Young practiced three to five hours a day and began playing in his father’s bands as a teenager, performing his first professional gig at a wedding when he was 16. As Young prepared for college his father encouraged him to pursue his dreams of becoming a premier saxophonist, but with one caveat, have a backup plan. So, Young enrolled in the mechanical engineering program at Michigan State University and used his talents to make payments at the bursar’s office.
“I put myself through college by playing regular gigs,” he said. “I was playing 20, 30 gigs a month and that’s really where I honed my skills as a player and a performer, and was really making it a show.”
Young became a major draw at Detroit area venues such as Signature Grill, Greektown Casino, MGM Grand Casino and Motor City Casino, and he developed the keen business sense that is needed to run a successful band.
“A band is a start-up business,” Young said. “Anyone who wants to obtain a qualified work force may want to check out the local music scene. When you’re in a band, you have to know how to budget, how to get to shows, how to be on time, what the crowd wants, how to look, how to dress and how to market yourself.
“I had to learn how to make money, and I couldn’t do it Monday through Thursday, because mechanical engineering was insanely tough for me. I was working harder than I’d ever worked in my life: I remember being in Calculus and wondering how am I going to afford tuition? I figured I could play Friday nights, Saturday nights and Sunday mornings with a band, so I played gigs with my father’s band, and picked up college gigs at hotels and clubs.”
Biographical information courtesy of Justin Young; for more reading see links below:
http://www.justinyoungsax.com/bio.htm
http://www.justinyoungsax.com/