Kyle was schooled in Dixieland music from his earliest days, and was already a professional musician by the age of 12. His roots may be in Dixie, but Kyle has played with numerous groups and artists over the years in styles ranging from avant-garde and straight-ahead jazz to big band, rock, heavy-metal, fusion and funk. The list of notables Kyle has shared the stage with is lengthy, and includes Manhattan Transfer, Dewey Redman, Bobby Shew, Steve Morse, Stu Hamm, Dave Gruisin, Big Country, Ernie Watts, Kowloon Honkers, Jerry VanDyke, Rick Derringer, and Slam Stewart. Looking back over an active professional career, Kyle has two personal favorites that he say pretty much sum it up, "I've played with the great Dizzy Gillespie, and I've busked in the streets...both were unforgettable experiences."
Kyle plays all saxes, flutes and clarinets, and tinkers on bass, piano and drums.
After a childhood spent studying classical guitar,
Avi's first musical travels were to the London funk scene. Within a
few years, his guitar took him to the other side of the pond - to the
Guitar Institute of Technology at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles,
and study of jazz. The next career wanderings were to Australia, where
Avi settled in to become a fixture on the rowdy rock and roll pub circuit.
As one half of the popular pub duo DNA Expose, Avi toured Australia
throughout the 90's. On tour in nearby Malaysia in the late '90's, Avi
met a certain American anthropologist. Before he knew it, he was following
her through rain forests and fishing villages, playing command performances
in Iban longhouses. He used the break to write his first album of original
music, In Transit, later recorded at Tonebarge Studios in San
Francisco while releases by his jam band, AVI
AND ME, shot up the online MP3 charts. Intrigued by tales of the
Pacific Northwest, that's where he and the American anthropologist who
became his wife settled in 2002.
