Bohdan Kinal gets around.

The saxophonist first played Jazz on Jay in 2021 when he and most of his bandmates in the Center Square Jazz Collective were still in high school; and he returned last year in bassist Nicholas Dwarwika’s Quartet.

Today he leads his own quartet with Sam Wagner, guitar; Vinny Marotta, bass; and Kiemon Noel, drums.

Bohdan Kinal plays tenor sax with Center Square Jazz Collective at Jazz on Jay on July 15, 2021

“Sam, Kiemon, and I have played together since high school,” said Kinal. “We’re all going into our senior year of college now; Vinny is new to our lineup.” (Marotta’s quartet opened for the Van Dyck’s recent all-star centennial tribute to Miles Davis and John Coltrane.) Past jazz giants have long inspired Kinal, plus family, friends and teachers.

His father played sax in middle school and his mother played trumpet and piano and sang through high school, then took up the banjo in college. His grandmother played stride piano for area silent films. “I aspire to have ears like her,” said Kinal.

When Eric Walentowicz brought his sax into Kinal’s third grade classroom, “I remember… being immediately drawn to the sound,” said Kinal. “I think that was the moment I was inspired to pick it up.” (Walentowicz played Jazz on Jay last Thursday with the Union College Jazz Ensemble.)

Kinal said Sonny Rollins’s “Sunny Side Up” album, plus Joe Henderson on both Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder” and Horace Silver’s “Song for my Father,” gave him “a concept for the sound of the music early on.” He learned with peers Josh Klamka and Aidan Doyle and from teachers including Walentowicz, Brian Patneaude, Jim Corigliano and Gary Bartz. At Oberlin, Bartz told him, “If I listen to the notes closely enough, they will tell me where they want to go and want to be.”

Doyle played with Klamka and Doyle in their first band after high school. On their first gig, they played the Guilderland Farmer’s Market for tips and a $30 fee.

Kinal played lead alto sax in the 2023 NAfME All-Eastern Jazz Orchestra, with the 2022 and 2023 New York All-State Jazz Orchestras and the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College Big Band. He won the Lee Shaw Memorial Scholarship, an award for best student jazz composition from the University of Denver and a Flint Initiative Grant.

“We’ll be doing mostly standards…but are playing a few originals as well,” he said, listing “Star Eyes,” “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” and “In the Still of the Night.”

“I like to approach standards by honoring the melody, and making it the foundation for soloing,” Kinal said. “Jazz, to me, is just spontaneous themes and variations, and these melodies are the keystone to the themes that are developed during solos.

“There is a lot of room for improvisation and interaction between us. Our music is a space to share and collectively develop ideas.”

Jazz on Jay continues next Thursday, June 18, with Marcus Benoit.

Jazz on Jay is presented by the ElectriCity Arts and Entertainment District. 

Sponsors are the New York State Council on the Arts, a Schenectady County Legislature Arts & Culture Grant, Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation and The Schenectady Foundation. We also receive support from Schenectady City Hall and Hoke’s Jukebox. 

Show time is 12 noon at Jay Square opposite City Hall. Rain site: Robb Alley at Proctors.