Henry Fraser

Henry Fraser (b. 1991, Boston. MA) moved to NYC in 2014, and has been actively working on a diverse array of projects since. Collaborating with such artists as John Zorn, Ka Baird, Uniform, Brandon Seabrook, Lea Bertucci, and Isa Crespo Pardo’s sinonó, he has toured throughout the US and abroad, playing venues including the Panama Jazz Festival, Moers Festival, Unsound Festival, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and Lincoln Center. Fraser’s raw working materials—the ultimate treatment of which can vary greatly—emerge through collaboration and by engaging with myriad musical forms unto which an improvisational framework can be mapped; these are often communal, ceremonial, psychedelic, and/or religious forms. This dialogical approach privileges no particular sound world or aesthetic, but rather implies a value system whereby the musician(s) themselves—their personal history—are salient in the work. Since 2019, Fraser has focused heavily on solo music for the double bass, culminating in three releases and establishing him as a technical and creative force among his generation of bassists—the latest, Breath Line, was released in the fall of 2024. Fraser was selected as a fellow for the Art OMI Music residency (2021), was named a NYSCA/NYFA Finalist in the category of Music/Sound (2022) and was invited to participate in the SWR NEWJazz Meeting (2022). In 2023, he joined Carnegie Hall’s Future Music Project as a Teaching Artist, facilitating music workshops with incarcerated youth, and in 2025 he will have his first residency at The Stone in NYC.