Epsom Jazz Club – Fraser Smith Quartet

Playing at Epsom Jazz Club this October – quite simply an all-star lineup of UK Jazz musicians.

Saxophonist Fraser Smith has brought together some of the best on the scene; Steve Brown on drums, Rob Barron on keys and Simon Read on bass.

Fraser has played across the world and is a regular in some of London’s leading clubs. He has brought his own band to Ronnie Scott’s on numerous occasions and is now signed to the esteemed UK jazz label Ubuntu Music, with whom he released his album “TipTop!” in April this year. A working musician, Fraser has cut his teeth and paid his dues on the London scene over the last decade and a half.

Fraser’s second album “TipTop!” is full of ‘straight ahead’, hard-bop inspired originals. Leading critic John Fordham of the Guardian described Fraser as ‘Nonchalantly confident and very hard swinging’. The track “Wardell”, dedicated to master saxman Wardell Gray, was featured as Jazz FM’s ‘Track of the Week’ and the video of tune “Might Not” was featured as Jazzwise’s ‘Video of the Day’.

With a focus on swing and the straight ahead, Fraser channels the sound and language of the big Tenor men. His music harkens back to the Golden ages of jazz, from 40s Kansas City through to 60s New York.

Born in Birmingham, raised between the Midlands and Wales, Fraser first picked up the sax at the age of 15. He first came to the music of Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong and Ike Quebec through the Woolworth’s bargain bucket. After studying hundreds of solos, he considers himself a ‘practical scholar’, bringing these sounds of a bygone era to a modern stage. Smith appears almost nightly on the London scene, playing approximately 200+ gigs a year, mostly in the capital but as far abroad as China, Mexico, Bahrain and many other destinations.

Buy tickets online now, or at the door on the night (if still available).