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FRED HESS
(b. 1944) – tenor saxophone, composer
"Hess
has an obvious affinity for a wide range of jazz-related idioms;
he melds them into a cool, brainy, and utterly natural composite.
On tenor, Hess has a mellow, Lester-ish tone and what seems to
be an encyclopedic knowledge of the tenor giant’s style.
Still, his melodic sense also draws from the best of the modern
idioms. His articulation is smooth and light; harmonically, he’s
not adverse to going “out,” though he never discards
the changes of a tune for the sake of expedience." - All
Music Guide
Born in Abington,
Pennsylvania, Hess grew up in New Jersey, attending Trenton State
College, before moving to Colorado in 1981. In 1991, he graduated
with a doctorate in music composition from the University of Colorado,
Boulder. His early experiences include studies with saxophonist
Phil Woods, a stint with bandleader Fred Waring, and composing music
for the world premiere of a Sam Shepard play. As a composer, his
influences encompass avant-garde classical sources, as well as Anthony
Braxton and the members of the AACM. He currently is Director of
Music Composition at The
Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Committed to exploring the boundaries of both notated and improvised
music, Hess attended the Creative Music Studio, Woodstock, NY, in
1979. Moving to Colorado, he began the Boulder Creative Music Ensemble
in 1982. In addition to his own projects as a leader (BCME and The
Fred Hess Group), he was the founding director of Denver’s
Creative Music Works Orchestra and has been a member of drummer
Ginger Baker’s Denver Jazz Quintet, as well as ensembles led
by trumpeter Ron Miles. His current performing groups are the Fred
Hess Quartet and the Fred Hess/Marc Sabatella Duo.
Along with recording fourteen CDs under his own name, Hess has twice
received the Colorado Council on the Arts Composition Fellowship
(1986 and 1994), and captured first place in the inaugural Hennessey
Jazz Search in Denver (1991), In 2000, Hess received the Julius
Hemphill Award for Jazz Composition awarded by the Jazz Composers
Alliance, and in 2006, he won first prize at the International Jazz
Composers Symposium held in Tampa Fl.. Favorable articles and CD
reviews have appeared in such periodicals as DownBeat, Jazziz, JazzTimes,
Coda, The Wire, JazzWise, Cadence, and Spin, as well as online jazz
websites.
Fred
Hess
4400 East 6th Ave Pkwy
Denver, CO 80220
phone: (720) 480-7472 email: fhmusic@indra.com
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