Introduction
Avram Fefer is an American jazz saxophonist, composer and band leader.
Career
Fefer attended Harvard, Berklee College of Music in Boston, and the New England Conservatory. He spent several years in Paris, where he played with Archie Shepp, The Last Poets, Sunny Murray, Kirk Lightsey, Rasul Siddik, Graham Haynes, and John Betsch. In Paris he became interested in West African and Arabic music, playing with musicians from Senegal, Cameroon, Mali, and Morocco. He was a composer and soloist for an acid jazz group in France.
He has been a featured soloist in the David Murray Big Band, Butch Morris Orchestra, Joseph Bowie Big Band, Mingus Big Band, Frank Lacy's Vibe Tribe, the Rob Reddy Octet, Famoro Diabate's Kakande, the Adam Lane Octet, the Michael Bisio Quartet, Adam Rudolph's Organic Orchestra, and Greg Tate's Burnt Sugar. He has a private music teaching practice in Brooklyn. He worked with director Ivo Van Hove on A Streetcar Named Desire and with Melvin Van Peebles on his 2010 theatrical production of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song in which he played tenor saxophone and had a small acting role.
Discography
As leader
- Calling All Spirits (Cadence, 2001)
- Lucille's Gemini Dream (CIMP, 2001)
- Shades of the Muse (CIMP, 2003)
- Painting Breath Stoking Fire (CIMP, 2005)
- Heavenly Places (Boxholder, 2005)
- Kindred Spirits (Boxholder, 2005)
- Ritual (Clean Feed, 2009)
- Eliyahu (Not Two, 2011)
- Live in Sant'Anna (Arresi, 2013)
- Testament (Clean Feed, 2019)
As sideman
With Michael Bisio
- Connections (CIMP, 2005)
- Circle This (CIMP, 2007)
- Live at Vision Fest. XII (Not Two, 2008)
- AM (CIMP, 2017)
With Burnt Sugar
- Making Love to the Dark Ages (LiveWired, 2009)
- All Ya Needs That Negrocity (Avant Groidd, 2011)
- All You Zombies Dig the Luminosity (Avant Groidd, 2017)
With others
- Bobby Few, Few and Far Between (Boxholder, 2002)
- Bobby Few, Sanctuary (CIMP, 2005)
- Mike Rimbaud, Put That Dream in Your Pipe and Smoke It Subway (Sun, 2014)