This excitingly original Canadian jazz ensemble was formed in 1987 by the dynamic composer, trombonist and pianist Hugh Fraser.
Performance highlights have been featured concerts at the Blue Note Club in New York City, the New Morning Club in Geneva, four weeks at Ronnie Scott's Club in London, Yoshi's in San Francisco, Catalinas in Los Angeles; features at most major Canadian jazz festivals, Havana International Jazz Festival; special concerts in Brazil, Colombia, Panama; television specials of the Quintet at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Hugh Fraser on Cuban national T.V. with Steve Coleman and Roy Hardgrove, a Bravo profile, and radio broadcasts from many concerts throughout the U.S.A. Europe, and Canada.
The Hugh Fraser Quintet has released four albums: Looking Up which won the 1988 Juno Award (Canada's Grammy), Pas de Problem which won the 1989 CARAS (Canadian Association of Recording Arts and Sciences) award for best jazz album and a Juno nomination the same year, Red and Blue winner of 1996 Pacific Music Industry Award for Best Jazz Album of th Year, and In the Mean Time recorded at the end of a highly successful U.K. and Ireland tour in the fall of 1996, winner of the 1998 Juno Award for Best Mainstream Jazz Album.
A selection of international reviews
"...the hottest band in the country..." - Mark Miller, "The Globe and Mail," Toronto
"Prodigious technique, heavy duty soloists..." - Paris International Jazz Festival
"...the music (is) stately and studied, highly inventive...highly original." - John Ephland, "Downbeat Magazine"
"...individual and sparkling with a sound of today that is nevertheless rooted in bop..." - Derek Ansell, "Jazz Journal International," London-England
Go to Itinerary/Photographs
Go to Recordings by The Hugh Fraser Quintet
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