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Fred Katz

Fred Katz (born February 25, 1919) is an American composer, songwriter, conductor, cellist, and professor.

Katz was classically trained at the cello and piano and began his career in a number of classical and swing orchestras. In the early 1950s, Katz accompanied singers such as Lena Horne, Tony Bennett and Frankie Laine. From 1955 through 1958, he was a member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet. He also recorded several solo albums for Pacific Jazz, Warner Bros., and Decca Records. At Decca, he also served as A&R director.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, Katz scored a number of films for Roger Corman, including A Bucket of Blood and The Little Shop of Horrors. He also composed a number of pieces of classical music. Katz went on to become a professor of cultural anthropology at the California State University at Northridge, specializing in ethnic music.

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222
Album Review

Fred Katz: Folk Songs For Far Out Folk

Read "Folk Songs For Far Out Folk" reviewed by Michael P. Gladstone


Cellist Fred Katz has indeed led a fascinating life. His primary contribution to jazz music was as cellist for the influential Chico Hamilton Quartet of the mid-to-late 1950s. Katz, who studied under Pablo Casals, would leave Hamilton and never return to jazz again. He did release a handful of albums under his own name, and perhaps this 1959 session provides the biggest mystery.

A longtime Zen Buddhist, Katz wanted find some commonality between African, Hebrew and ...

171
Album Review

Fred Katz: Folk Songs for Far Out Folks

Read "Folk Songs for Far Out Folks" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni


Cellist and composer Fred Katz is an extraordinary character. He studied cello with Pablo Casals, introduced the cello to the jazz world as a member in the Chico Hamilton Quartet and recorded solo jazz albums. He's also inspired and influenced many musicians, such as another forward-thinking cellist, Fred Lonberg-Holm, who dedicated his A Valentine for Fred Katz, (Atavistic, 2002) to the visionary artist.

A multi-disciplinary radical, Katz composed soundtracks (most noteworthy is 1960's Little Shop of Horrors), accompanied actor Sidney ...

660
Profile

Fred Katz

Read "Fred Katz" reviewed by Elliott Simon


Fred Katz is generally credited with being the first musician to explore the possibility of the cello as a jazz instrument. He accomplished this while an integral member of drummer Chico Hamilton's influential '50s quintet and through his own solo works such as Soul-o-cello (Decca, 1957), Fred Katz and His Jammers (Decca, 1958) and Zen (World Pacific, 1956). Katz met Hamilton while the two were backing vocalist Lena Horne and when Hamilton was looking for a different kind of instrument ...

174
Album Review

Fred Katz: Folk Songs for Far Out Folk

Read "Folk Songs for Far Out Folk" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Call Fred Katz a visionary, an iconoclast, a far-out Zen guy. Here's a quote from Katz that gives some insight into the mind of the artist: “Tradition is a terrible tyrant. Memory, man. It's better to live in the moment. I am eating this sandwich. Know what I mean?"Katz possesses a long, strange resume: the scoring of the Roger Corman films Little Shop of Horrors (1960) and Bucket of Blood (1959); a late-fifties stint as A&R man for ...

261
Album Review

Fred Katz: Folk Songs For Far Out Folk

Read "Folk Songs For Far Out Folk" reviewed by Troy Collins


An early student of Pablo Casals, Fred Katz is best known as the seminal jazz cellist in Chico Hamilton's breakthrough chamber jazz quintet of the 1950s. With a lengthy list of credits to his oeuvre, Katz went on to forge an unprecedented career path. From film score composer for Roger Corman (Little Shop of Horrors, A Bucket of Blood, The Wasp Woman) and one-time A&R man for Decca Records to gigs as arranger for such oddball concept records as Sidney ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Classical Katz

Unknown label
2007

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Folk Songs For Far...

Reboot Stereophonic
2007

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Folk Songs for Far...

Reboot Stereophonic
2007

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The Little Shop Of...

Unknown label
1984

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Folk Songs For Far...

Unknown label
1959

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Zen: The Music Of...

Unknown label
1957

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