PREVIEW
HUGH FRASER
Thursday, May 29
Beat Niq Jazz and Social Club
Until I met Hugh Fraser, I couldn’t name a jazz musician who had collaborated with an astrophysicist and created music for sensory deprivation tanks. And that’s just part of this trombonist, pianist and composer’s fascinating career. The Vancouver-based Fraser came to jazz on a winding road that started with avant-garde music shows in punk rock clubs in Vancouver and, most recently, includes composing for an a cappella group in Montreal.
Fraser isn’t a "conventional" jazz musician – he draws inspiration from sources as diverse as world beat, classical, Latin and traditional big band jazz. He’s as much at home with the works of John Coltrane and Duke Ellington as he is with J.S. Bach and Mozart, but make no mistake, he is first and foremost a jazz musician.
"It’s very dear to me," says Fraser. "My inspiration comes from the albums I was brought up with and the music I play and the concept of this tradition of improvisation within the context of the greater whole and being able to move freely between (the) collective and individual state. I think the one music that I’ve always identified with is jazz."
Fraser’s approach to music has always been dynamic and, since his early studies at Vancouver Community College and Woodstock, New York’s Creative Music Studio, he’s been at the centre of some of the most groundbreaking jazz groups in Canada. He founded the Vancouver Ensemble of Jazz Improvisation (VEJI) in 1980 and formed the Hugh Fraser Quintet in 1986.
VEJI released its 20th anniversary album, V, in 1999 and was invited to tour Brazil in 2001. Many jazz critics, like Toronto’s Mark Miller, consider VEJI pivotal in Canadian jazz since it mixes traditional approaches (like those in the Vancouver orchestras led by Alan Matheson) with the fusion of classical and popular performances associated with the Hard Rubber Orchestra. Fraser is quick to point out that he’s comfortable with this comparison, but he jokes that he "used to be a lot more militant about categorizations."
What’s intriguing about Fraser’s jazz performances and compositions is the fact that they are so broad-based. Unlike VEJI, his Hugh Fraser Quintet is a hard bop group in the New York style that can, as Fraser says, "venture into other areas that are more possibly extreme or more classical in some places."
The Quintet continues to gain recognition – it won a Juno for the 1988 release Looking Up and another in 1998 for In the Mean Time. Appropriately, "in the meantime" could also describe Hugh Fraser’s many other pursuits, which include founding his own record label (Boathouse) and teaching jazz at The Banff Centre, The Royal Academy of Music in London, and the University of Ulster’s summer jazz workshop. This international recognition continues to be the norm for him, landing him appearances in Havana, collaborations with Cuban musicians Chucho Valdez and Irakere, and frequent tours in Europe and North and South America.
You might assume that the list of Fraser’s work is full and varied enough, but these are just highlights in a career marked by great momentum.
"When I was younger, I just had such a hell bent sound and energy quotient that I wanted to get it out," Fraser says, laughing. Many would argue that he continues to draw on that passion and, if anything, his compositions and performances have gotten richer. Fraser credits that to maturity and the influence of a few older, experienced jazz musicians.
"Without question, Slide Hampton, Kenny Wheeler and Dave Holland have been some of the main people (who) have changed my life drastically with their acceptance of me, their recognition of me as a potential artist," he says. "For me to be accepted with my heroes like that blows out any award."
Fraser’s newest experiments and projects have mined a deep desire to explore how music affects people. That’s partly due to recent collaborations with a Victoria astrophysicist and a New York psychologist that explore "universal tones" in music. It’s fitting that these collaborations should push the boundaries of Fraser’s creativity because that’s been the hallmark of projects that include big band, hard bop and a five-CD set of healing music. Throughout all of them, Fraser is dedicated to his audience and his fellow musicians.
"I see myself as hopefully creating situations where people can experience joy in the audiences, and the musicians can experience joy on the stage and an energy exchange," says Fraser. "If I create an opportunity for that to happen, then I’ve been successful." |
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