Fred Ho

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Fred Ho (2005)

Fred Ho (actually Fred Wei-han Houn , pinyin Hou Weihan * 10. August 1957 in Palo Alto , California ; † 12. April 2014 in New York City ) was an American jazz - composer , band leader and baritone saxophonist of the Modern Jazz as well as a writer and political activist.

Live and act

Fred Ho had Chinese roots, studied at Harvard University , worked in the Asian-American jazz spectrum and combined jazz with elements of Asian music in his music. In his first album Tomorrow Is Now , Ho made reference to role models such as Ornette Coleman ( Tomorrow Is the Question ) or Max Roach ( Freedom Suite ). With his Afro-Asian Ensemble , which he founded in 1982, Ho combined political concerns with the lyric of jazz - just as Charlie Haden did with his Liberation Music Orchestra - especially in his third album, The Underground Railway to the Heart . He was based strongly on the sound of Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington and Ellington's baritone saxophonist Harry Carney , as with the title Caravan by Juan Tizol . Ho also worked on Julius Hemphill's big band projects . His partners in the Afro-Asian Ensemble included Kiyoto Fujiwara and Jon Jang . Ho also wrote musical plays such as Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon , which premiered in Philadelphia in June 2006 , and Voice of the Dragon I, II, and III.

Ho was also active as a political activist and writer. He was the co-editor of two books: Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America and Sounding Off! Music as Subversion / Resistance / Revolution . Ho's diverse activities took place within the framework of the Asian-American movement. As a student at Harvard, Ho was involved in the founding of many civil rights groups such as the East Coast Asian Students Union , the Asian American Arts Alliance in New York City, the Asian American Resource Center in Boston and the record label Asian Improv .

Ho lived in Greenpoint , a borough of Brooklyn , New York City, where he died of colon cancer in April 2014 at the age of 56 .

Selection discography

Lexical entry

Web links

Commons : Fred Ho  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ben Ratliff : Fred Ho, 56, Composer and Radical Activist, Dies . In: The New York Times, April 12, 2014 (accessed April 13, 2014).
personal data
SURNAME Ho, Fred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Houn, Fred Wei-han (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz saxophonist, band leader and writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Palo Alto
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 2014
Place of death New York City