The Yellowjackets | KNKX Studio Session

Setting up their instruments to perform in the KNKX studios, the four members of the Yellowjackets were smiling widely and eager to play. Over 40 years since their debut backing guitarist Robben Ford, these stars of jazz fusion continue to create at the highest level. Russell Ferrante, the band’s co-founder, has seen the Yellowjackets through several lineup changes and years of evolving musical styles. He told studio session host Abe Beeson that what makes their music “Yellowjackets“ music is a modern sense of rhythm, strong melodies, and the unique musical collaboration of his bandmates. Despite personnel changes, the band is remarkably long lived. Drummer Will Kennedy joined the Yellowjackets in the mid-1980s and, after a decade of other musical pursuits, returned to the Yellowjackets. Saxophonist Bob Mintzer came on as a guest with the Yellowjackets around 1990 and quickly became a core member of the band on his acoustic and Electronic Wind Instrument as well as a key com