Celebration of Music - Talent Search

My name is Max Kaplan, I’m 20 years old, and I’m originally from Montclair, New Jersey. I am studying music here in Memphis, Tennessee at Rhodes College. I grew up in the apartment above my parents BBQ and Blues restaurant in New Jersey. My father has played guitar since he was 8 years old, and he loves blues and jazz. Every weekend they have live blues and jazz music at the restaurant- essentially in my back yard. Here, I learned blues guitar and grew an intense appreciation for music and music culture. This is a huge part of why I chose to come to Memphis – It’s an entire city just like my parents restaurant. I came to Rhodes College with the belief that I was going to be a psychology major. I thought that I was the hottest guitar player around with all of my blues licks, and therefore I didn’t need to major in music. I realized that I wanted to do nothing else except create music for the world, and soon I was a music major. Now I am playing in several groups around Memphis – two Jazz bands, a punk band (surprisingly), and my own group “Trezevant” which is an indie rock group with a heavy jazz and blues influence. I am super excited to take part in this show as it is a huge opportunity for me to come closer to my dream of spreading my music and my message of love to the entire world.