Alex Foster (musician)

Paul Alexander "Alex" Foster (born May 10, 1953 in Oakland ) is an American jazz and studio musician ( alto and tenor saxophone , also soprano saxophone , clarinet , flute , piccolo ). He plays the alto saxophone in the Saturday Night Live house band and is the musical director of the Mingus Big Band , the Mingus Orchestra and Mingus Dynasty .

Live and act

Foster comes from a family of musicians. He first studied classical clarinet at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music , the Curtis Institute of Music and the Institut de Hautes Etudes Musicales (IHEM) in the canton of Valais , Switzerland. He was a member of the Oakland Symphony and the San Francisco Light Opera before turning to jazz.

In 1970 he founded his own quintet with Mike Wolff . In 1972 he moved to New York City and played with Duke Pearson , Clark Terry and Chico Hamilton . In 1975 he was a founding member of Jack DeJohnette's Directions . He played with McCoy Tyner , Nat Adderley and Freddie Hubbard and had an engagement on Broadway in the musical Ain't Misbehavin ' . From 1982 to 1985 he went on three world tours with Jaco Pastorius ' Big Band and recorded two live albums. As a studio musician, he appeared at Paul Simon's Graceland and on recordings with Paul McCartney .

Foster was a member of the Saturday Night Live house band from 1985 to 1990 and again since 1995. In between he toured with the Gil Evans Orchestra and Steps Ahead, among others . He later lived in Greece for 10 years, where he worked as a consultant for the Modern Music Institute. He is a member of the Monday Night Band , which includes Gil Evans alumni .

Discography (selection)

Band member

• Jack DeJohnettes Directions: Cosmic Chicken ( Prestige Records , 1975)
• Jack DeJohnettes Directions: Untitled ( ECM Records , 1976)
• Jack DeJohnettes Directions: New Rags (ECM Records, 1977)
• Jaco Pastorius Big Band: Invitation ( Warner Bros. , 1983)
• The Gil Evans Orchestra : Tribute To Gil ( Soul Note , 1989)
• Jaco Pastorius: Live in New York City , Vols. 1, 3, 6 (Big World Music, 1990, 1991, 1998)
• Miles Davis & Quincy Jones : Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux (Warner Bros., 1993)
• The Monday Night Orchestra : Playing The Music of Gil Evans - Live at Sweet Basil (Apollon, 1993)

Studio work

• Lou Reed : Sally Can't Dance ( RCA Records , 1974)
• McCoy Tyner : Inner Voices ( Milestone Records , 1978)
• Chic : C'est Chic ( Atlantic Records , 1978)
• Chic: Risqué (Atlantic Records, 1979)
• Sister Sledge : We Are Family (Cotillion Records, 1979)
• Paul Simon : Graceland (Warner Bros., 1986)
• Michael Bolton : The Hunger ( Columbia Records , 1987)
• Laurie Anderson : Strange Angels (Warner Bros., 1989)
• John Scofield : That's What I Say ( Verve Records , 2005)
• Katy Perry : Prism ( Capitol Records , 2013)

solo

• John Lewis & Alex Foster Transaxdrum (Finite 1977)
• Alex Foster: Beginnings ... Goodbye (Big World Music, 1991)
• Alex Foster, Mike Wolff : Pool of Dreams (Truspace Records, 1997)
• Alex Foster: Alex Foster's Condition (LionBoy Records, 2011)

Lexical entries

• Leonard Feather & Ira Gitler , The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz . Oxford / New York, 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .

Web links

• Foster's Facebook page
• Foster's LinkedIn profile
• Alex Foster at Allmusic (English)
• Alex Foster at Discogs (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Artist Bio. ReverbNation , accessed February 14, 2018.
2. ↑ Musician profile ( Memento of the original from February 14, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at RS Berkeley. Retrieved February 14, 2018. 
3. ^ Musicians. Monday Night Band. Retrieved February 14, 2018.