Jef Kearns

A new sound has entered the urban music scene: the flute. Jef Kearns, soul flautist, is transforming the reputation of the instrument from band geek to urban chic through his signature flute sounds and urban sense of style.

Jef Kearns grew up listening to the urban music radio stations broadcast out of Detroit and credits his selected career path to them. Even at the age of 10, Jef would learn R&B melodies and transpose hip hop lines and verse into the rhythms of his flute. “I’d spend hours in my room playing along with hip hop station 96.3FM,” Jef reveals, “and when I wasn’t playing I was listening intensely to what exactly was happening, musically.”

Consisting of all original tracks, Jef’s debut album On the Level unleashes a quiet storm of flute-focused R’n’B grooves that cross genres from modern soul to hip-hop to classic Motown. Of the album Jef says, “It is my mission to show people that flute that can be just as soulful and down-and-dirty as sax. These songs shed a whole new light on urban music and the flute’s place in it. It’s the flute album for people who think they don’t like flute. You’ve never heard it like this before.”