Big Works by Hugh Fraser

This CD features his Concerto for Jazz Orchestra which is a 30 minute tour de force featuring all the section and solists while the Mass in C Minor is a result of blending Hugh's idles, J.S. Bach and John Coltrane.

VEJI has created an energized backdrop for guest soloists Frank Foster, Slide Hampton, Don Thompson, Dave Holland, Dave Liebman, Kenny Wheeler and Julian Priester. VEJI performs mainly original music, but has premiered important works at jazz festivals such as Charles Mingus's Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, and John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. All of VEJI's members are major forces in jazz performance, composition, and education in the Canadian Pacific North West. Past members are thriving in New York and Toronto and still VEJIfy when near enough.

Whether VEJI is playing screaming bop, Afro Latin grooves, white noise or death fusion, the combination of horns, drums , strings and voices will transport the listener to another level of bliss through sound, then return them to their environment refreshed and energized.

VEJI was featured as a Canadian jazz center piece at the IAJE (International Association of Jazz Educators) predominately American meeting in Toronto, January 2003. VEJI's concert was broadcast across Canada, New York and the Eastern United States area reaching an audience estimated in the millions and was considered as one of the top 10 jazz events in Canada for 2003 by Mark Miller of the Globe and Mail.

BIG WORKS!

Boathouse Records is pleased to announce the release of VEJI's 5th album, "Big Works" featuring the large 22 piece version of VEJI with full strings, harp and choir. The members of VEJI on this album include Juno Award winning Cam Ryga, Ross Taggart, Perry White, Brad Turner, Ian McDougall, Christine Duncan, Dave Robbins, Ken Lister and many others! This CD features Hugh Fraser's Concerto for Jazz Orchestra which is a 30 minute tour de force featuring all the sections and soloists while the Mass in C Minor is a result of blending Hugh's idles, J.S. Bach and John Coltrane. The final two movements of the Mass in C Minor won the BBC & Mechanical Copyright Composition Award for Best Big Band Composition in London, England.

CD REVIEWS

by Irwin Block, The Montreal Gazette

This CD captures the best of the multi-talented trombonist/pianist/composer, Hugh Fraser of Victoria, B.C. A stirring recording of Fraser show-pieces - Concerto for Jazz Orchestra and Mass in C Minor. A memorable piece in five movements, the concerto features soprano Christine Duncan and the piano of former Montreal resident Tilden Webb. The mass is a colourful work of praise, Catholic in word and spirit, with four-voices, strings and harp stretching the harmonies. FOUR STARS

by Joseph Blake, Times Colonist

"Big Works" is Fraser's recent recording of his epic compositions Concerto for Jazz Orchestra and Mass in C Minor. He conducts the 22-piece VEJI band plus a string section and soprano Christine Duncan and a vocal quartet in a pair of breathtakingly complex yet accessible, 30-minute romps through his most prominent musical influences. Fraser's orchestral palete includes equal parts of J.S. Bach and John Coltrane plus a wide rante of other jazz, worldbeat and classical colours. "Big Works" is his eclectic masterwork...so far.

HUGH FRASER

Native Victorian Hugh Fraser has been a positive force to the beautiful world of music for over two decades. He formed the 13 member Vancouver Ensemble of Jazz Improvisation (VEJI) in 1980, then went on to international success with The Hugh Fraser Quintet from 1986. The Quintet tours Europe, North and South America yearly. He was voted 1996 and 1998 Canadian Trombonist of the Year by Toronto's Jazz Report Awards.

Hugh has recorded over one hundred of his compositions on seventeen albums as a leader. He won two Juno Awards and many nominations for these recordings, and appears on over twenty albums as a sideman including recent releases by Cuban bands Chucho Valdés and Irakere on Bembe Records, Perspectiva on Egrem Records, and Kenny Wheeler on ECM Records.

Hugh is currently the Head of Jazz Studies at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and holds an honourary Doctorate from McMaster University. Hugh has served as the Program Head of Jazz at the Banff Centre for Fine Arts, Head of Jazz Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, Head of the University of Ulster Summer Jazz Workshop in Ireland, and is much sought after as a guest clinician by all major progressive institutions.

Hugh has performed and/or recorded with such artists as Jaki Byard, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Billy Ekstein, Slide Hampton, Frank Foster, Don Thompson, Shorty Rogers, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland, Muhal Richard Abrams, Robin Eubanks, Dave Liebman, Sheila Jordan, Lee Konitz and Jean Toussaint.

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