WITF Music: Very Fine Gentlemen

Is it jazz? Is it rock? Is it funk?

• Joe Ulrich/WITF
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Joe has been interested in audio and music since he was a kid. What started as a fascination with his parents’ vinyl records and cassette tapes turned into a love of both performing and recording. He grew up in Elizabethtown, Pa. and moved to Pittsburgh in 1999 where he majored in Photography at the University of Pittsburgh.
  
  In 2004, he attended the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences in Tempe, AZ. He returned to Pittsburgh to work at a recording studio.
  
  In 2008, Joe arrived at WITF, where his skills have found a good home as an on-air host, audio engineer and producer of WITF Music. In 2016, Joe earned a National Edward R. Murrow award for Best Use of Sound.

Mike Evans performing with Very Fine Gentlemen at WITF Music on April 6, 2026. (Joe Ulrich - WITF)

“What do you think about making an all-instrumental band that, uh, we may never play anywhere?”

The Very Fine Gentlemen formed with one goal in mind: to play whatever they wanted. The result is a hard-to-describe mix of funk, jazz, rock and other styles. However you describe it, band members Michael Washkevich (guitar), Jon Rohrer (bass), Jim Bedorf (drums), Mike Evans (saxophone) and Matt Bowman (trumpet, keys) settled into our studio and played three of their tunes. Afterward we talked about how their unique style can make it difficult to find gigs, their conflicting opinions on A.I. in music, and why the quicksand we all saw in movies and videogames turned out not to be that big of a problem.

A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.

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