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Nick Fraser

Nick Fraser (drums) has been an active and engaging presence in the Toronto new jazz and improvised music community since he moved there from Ottawa in 1996. He has worked with a veritable "who's who" of Canadian jazz and improvised music including Justin Haynes, Mike Murley, Rich Underhill, PJ Perry, Phil Dwyer, Michael Snow, John Oswald, Andrew Downing, Jean Martin, Christine Duncan, Joe Sorbara, Lina Allemano, Quinsin Nachoff, Dave Restivo, Jim Vivian, David Braid, Ryan Driver, David Occhipinti, William Carn, Nancy Walker, Kieran Overs, Kelly Jefferson, Mark Eisenman, John MacLeod, Ken Aldcroft, Scott Thomson, Marilyn Lerner, Lori Freedman, Jean Derome, Ron Samworth, John Stetch and Kirk MacDonald.

In addition, he has had the opportunity to perform with such international artists as Michael Moore, Anthony Braxton, William Parker, Joe McPhee, Jean-Luc Ponty, Bela Fleck, Joe Lovano, John Scofield, Wynton Marsalis, Mick Beck, David Binney, Ray Vega, Steve Turre, Matt Welch, Bill Carrothers and Bill Mays. Nick's recorded works as a leader include "Owls in Daylight" (1997) and "Nick Fraser and Justin Haynes are faking it" (2004).

He has worked extensively with Rob Clutton and Ronda Rindone in the cooperative trio This Moment whose debut album "Beautiful Line" was released in 2002 on the 9Winds label. He also co-leads the co-operative group Drumheller with Brodie West, Rob Clutton, Eric Chenaux and Doug Tielli who released their self-titled debut CD on the rat-drifting label in 2005 and its follow-up "Wives" in 2006.

Other projects that occupy Nick regularly are The Christine Bougie Band, The Gulf Port Island Trio, the Lina Allemano 4, Deep Dark United and The Bill Grove Quartet. Nick is a founding member of The Association of Improvising Musicians of Toronto, a non-profit organisation dedicated to advocacy for the Toronto improvising community.

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5
Album Review

Dan Pitt Trio: Stages

Read "Stages" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Shades of Link Ray's “Rumble," from 1958. Shades of Dick Dale's 1963 hit “Miserlou." Shades of every guitar/bass/drum band that has ever set up in someone's garage in an attempt to work on their hard rock and roll chops, trying to become the next heavy metal band to hit the charts. Canadian guitarist Dan Pitt rolls with the guitar trio format on his Stages, though his trio is a good deal more intricate and musically skilled than the ...

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Album Review

Lina Allemano Four: Pipe Dream

Read "Pipe Dream" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Recorded in the winter of 2021 during the heart of the COVID pandemic, it is understandable that Pipe Dream, the latest offering from the Lina Allemano Four, has an air of ominous foreboding. Indeed, much of the album is devoted to the “Plague Diaries," a suite inspired by some of the darker themes of that period (with song titles like “Hunger and Murder" and “Doom and Doomer" giving an indication of what is in store). But like all of Allemano's ...

4
Album Review

The Brodie West Quintet: Meadow Of Dreams

Read "Meadow Of Dreams" reviewed by Chris May


It may or may not be because of a recent series of programmes about Impressionist art on British television, combined with a passing knowledge of intoxicants, but for some reason the album title Meadow Of Dreams suggests one of Claude Monet's paintings of a field of poppies. As it happens, Monet's poppy paintings are a good fit for Toronto-based alto saxophonist Brodie West's sophomore album with his acoustic quintet. The music is beautiful, sunny, uncorrupted—and a million ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Nick Fraser Quintet, Paula Shocron & Jörg Schippa

Read "Nick Fraser Quintet, Paula Shocron & Jörg Schippa" reviewed by Maurice Hogue


Toronto's noted drummer, Nick Fraser, kindly shared a preview track from If There Were No Opposites back in June as part of the 1200th show, and now the full album is ready to go, released by the much-respected Hat Hut label. Nick's got his usual crew of Tony Malaby, Rob Clutton and Andrew Downing, and the music they make is original and worthwhile. Other new releases opened for the first time include Chicago cellist Ishmael Ali, German guitarist Joerg Schippa ...

Album Review

ITACA: Vortex

Read "Vortex" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


Il quartetto ITACA, protagonista di questa diciassettesima uscita di nusica.org, deve il proprio nome all'incontro dei due paesi d'origine dei suoi componenti. La sua denominazione è infatti l'acronimo di Italia --da cui provengono Nicola Fazzini e Alessandro Fedrigo, le due anime di nusica.org -e Canada--paese degli altri due musicisti, il clarinettista Francois Houle e il batterista Nick Fraser. È in Italia che la formazione ha preso vita, grazie a due residenze del 2016 a Novara Jazz e a ...

1
Album Review

Dan Pitt Quintet: Wrongs

Read "Wrongs" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Maybe it's a case of false humility, or a stab at irony, but guitarist Dan Pitt seems to prefer self-deprecating album titles. The Toronto-based musician's 2019 trio release, Fundamentally Flawed (Self-Produced), featured bassist Alex Fournier and drummer Nick Fraser, and his current offering, Wrongs, adds saxophonists Naomi McCarroll-Butler and Patrick Smith to the mix. For an artist who actually gets it right most of the time, these releases could have been more accurately named. But we can forgive him that, ...

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Album Review

Lina Allemano Four: Vegetables

Read "Vegetables" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Trumpeter Lina Allemano is one of those artists whose boundless creativity requires numerous outlets for its adequate expression. Her Ohrenschmaus trio is a hard-driving unit that possesses a tenacious energy but somehow leaves room for adventitious excursions. The group's Rats and Mice (Lumo Records) was one of 2020's most intriguing releases. She's also an intrepid innovator on her instrument, particularly renowned for using a range of mutes that expand the options available for her artistry, heard to fine effect on ...

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"Fraser not so much plays the drums as hurls himself whole body and soul against skin and metal... truly talented." -Bill Stunt, CBC Radio.

"The young Toronto drummer is perhaps a little too progressive for the hidebound Canadian scene... Fraser is a deft and sensitive percussionist with a hint of an enigmatic streak, a feeling for economical gestures, and an innate sense of form." -Mark Miller, The Globe & Mail

"Fraser can swing hard when necessary, but hes equally a colorist with all manner of unusual tricks up his sleeve. Placing cymbals on the drums and pushing on them while striking them created a sound akin to a water gongs

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Primary Instrument

Drums

Location

Toronto

Willing to teach

Beginner to advanced

Credentials/Background

Nick has been part of the Ontario Arts Council's Artists in Education roster, conducting workshops in creative musical improvisation for Ontario High School students. He has conducted the workshop at Canterbury High School and Nepean High School in Ottawa, Oakwood Collegiate and A.Y. Jackson S.S. in Toronto, and Niagara District S.S. in Niagara-on-the-Lake. He has conducted improvisation workshops, master classes and drum clinics at universities and colleges as part of touring ensembles

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Harrison Argatoff
saxophone, tenor

Photos

Concerts

May 10 Fri

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Pipe Dream

Lumo Records
2023

buy

Stages

Self Published
2023

buy

Meadow Of Dreams

Ansible Editions
2022

buy

Desert Bloom

Alma Records
2022

buy

Avi Granite's In Good...

Pet Mantis Records
2022

buy

Wrongs

From: Wrongs
By Nick Fraser

Whistle up a Rope

From: Irrational Revelation And...
By Nick Fraser

USS Rent-a-Car

From: Square Peg
By Nick Fraser

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