Kloss was born blind in
Greenville, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, and attended
Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, where his father, Dr. Alton G. Kloss, was superintendent. When he was 10, he began to play the saxophone, and two years later he was playing in night clubs with professional musicians such as
Bobby Negri, Charles Bell, and
Sonny Stitt. At 16, he recorded his debut album,
Introducing Eric Kloss (Prestige, 1965), playing both alto and tenor saxophones with
Don Patterson and
Pat Martino. On his third album,
Grits & Gravy (1966), he was recording with musicians over twice his age:
Jaki Byard,
Richard Davis, and
Alan Dawson. He continued recording and performing while a student at
Duquesne University. A fan of
Elvis Presley and
The Ventures, he was attracted to the growth of
jazz fusion in the 1960s and 1970s, and eventually worked in the fusion idiom with musicians
Chick Corea,
Dave Holland, and
Jack DeJohnette. In the 1980s, Kloss taught at
Rutgers University, then
Duquesne University and
Carnegie Mellon. He and his wife, a vocalist, collaborated in a group called Quiet Fire. He has performed and recorded rarely since the 1980s, due to health problems. first in 1971 and finally in 1996. ==Discography==