Avram Fefer

«Drawing from the musical worlds of Ornette Coleman, Ali Farka Toure, Pharoah Sanders and Charles Mingus, the Juba Lee Quartet forges an original sound within a modern jazz context».
- All About Jazz

The Juba Lee Quartet builds on the long-standing trio of Fefer, Revis and Taylor which has been performing and recording together for over twenty years. Adding the scorching sound of Ribot's electric guitar to the mix brings a powerful new dimension to Fefer's musical palette that highlights the quartet's global sound. On their albums "Testament" and "Juba Lee", the melodies soar, the rhythm dances and swirls and the front line tears at the seams. It's a powerful spell-binding mix that transports audiences to a vast sonic dreamscape of shooting stars, desert journeys, romantic interludes and late-night urban escapades. The personnel may shift occasionally, but the live shows are always intensely energetic, mysterious and transcendent.

The trio had their debut at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2003 and have been playing together ever since. The albums "Ritual" and "Eliyahu" feature this outstanding group.

Avram met Brad on his very first gig in New York City with Graham Haynes, Brandon Ross and JT Lewis. He first encountered mystic rhythm wizard Hamid Drake at the Gnawa Festival in Essaouira in 2001 and recently toured with him as part of the "Juba Lee Quartet". All three have shared the expatriate experience of American jazz musicians living in Europe.

Groove-based modern jazz with influences from Africa and the Middle-East.
Multi-instrumental jazz composer Avram Fefer and multidisciplinary performing artist Carl Hancock Rux combine their talents in this exciting new ensemble honoring the unparalleled contributions of Jewish and African Americans to American culture; specifically the remarkable history of collaboration in America's greatest musical gift to the wider world, the music we call Jazz.
Bringing together the compositional and improvisational skills of the saxophonist and the baritone voice of the renowned word artist, these two veteran NYC performers will lead A.S.T.R.O. through a diverse set of sophisticated global jazz that celebrates Liberation and Transcendence in all its forms.

Avram and Hamid met in Morocco and have known each other for years, but only started playing together recently.
It was a match made in heaven and their duo clearly shows their musical - Kindred Spirits in the deepest possible sense.

With instrument in hand, Avram Fefer carefully approaches and begins sonic exploration of Richard Serra's immense work.
The heavy steel plates reflect and resonate. The space between them creates sympathetic harmonics. The sounds reverberate in unpredictable ways. His challenge is to create compelling improvisations while moving through, eliciting sound from and reacting to, the monumental sculpture.
Audiences are immersed in the acoustic/sculptural space as Richard Serra's work becomes inspiration, setting and instrument - interfacing with Fefer's improvisations to create original sounds in a unique experiential environment that combines the beauty of music, sculpture and live performance in powerful new ways.
The Resonant Sculpture Project is a long-term international series that has presented several times at Gagosian Gallery in New York, Paris and London, at Princeton University Art Museum and most recently at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

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«Mr Fefer displays a sense of being aligned with the plight of all of humanity in his music. This is what also makes him a riveting storyteller and a musical sketch-artist and is why his music is so compelling».
- Raul Da Gama at JazzDaGama

«Fefer is first of all an excellent composer and secondly, a great saxophonist, with a line-up that is an extension of his hand and at concerts, he brings those compositions to the next dimension with a live performance. He is absolute world class; lucid, restless and dancing in every performance».
- Hrvoje Horvat at Evening paper, Zagreb

«He is one of those jazz musicians who naturally combine tradition and experiment with a wide sound spectrum of rhythmic music, avant-garde, classical jazz and the influence of West African and Arab music and all of it is blended into the great musicianship of a quartet that kicks up the dust behind it and from be-bop to avant; he is limited very little by the word "jazz". The whole quartet with their natural, organic, life-like playing from the beginning with "Bedouin Dreams" sounded like you were listening to music from the soundtrack of films from the sixties, from action to drama. You can call it jazz but with the hypnotic rhythm and Fefer's free improvisations, they sounded like early, psychedelic Pink Floyd from '67 with Syd Barrett in the line-up».
- Davor Hrvoj

«If you haven't heard of saxophonist Avram Fefer and his quartet, you won't forget him after listening to his new album. The showstopper is "Bedouin Dream". Its twitching, snaking progress is driven by Revis' insidious ostinato. It is hypnotic and addictive. Joined at the hip in unison, Fefer and Ribot burn the melody into the air, then they separate and trade incitements. If the world were a perfect place of justice and meritocracy, "Bedouin Dream" would make them both famous».
- Thomas Conrad (Editor's Pick) at Jazz Times

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Full Biography at Avram Fefer website

Avram Fefer is a New York-based composer, improviser, bandleader and player of multiple woodwinds.
He has appeared on 13 CDs as a leader, many more as a sideman and has performed in clubs and festivals throughout the USA, Europe, Japan, Africa and the Middle East.
His recent Quartet recordings "Testament" and "Juba Lee" - featuring Marc Ribot, Eric Revis and Chad Taylor - have garnered rave reviews, many "Best of the Year" listings and numerous International festival invitations.
Avram's work is notable for its diverse and multi-faceted approach to music making, embracing many styles and influences while maintaining a consistently strong personal voice across genres and instruments.
He has performed with Brooklyn Raga Massive and with numerous West African Ensembles.
He has also been a long-term member of Greg Tate's Burnt Sugar Arkestra and Adam Rudolph's Go:Organic Orchestra, touring and recording many fine albums together.
Avram enjoys a variety of inter-disciplinary collaborations - including with painters, poets, dancers and sound designers - and was honored to perform in ground-breaking theater productions such as Ivo Van Hove's "Streetcar Named Desire" and Melvin Van Peebles' "Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song".
He is also the creator and performer of the Resonant Sculpture Project, a unique international series of solo acoustic interactions with the large-scale works of iconic sculptor Richard Serra. These solo RSP events have taken place in art galleries and museums around the world, including most recently, at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
He has performed in nearly every major venue in New York City, including Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Roulette, Brooklyn Museum, Harlem Studio Museum, Blue Note, National Sawdust, Apollo Theater and Pioneer Works.
Avram has received grants for his work from New Music USA, USArtists International and Foundation for Contemporary Arts.