Joseph Hill

New Releases Interviews Festivals

Reggae Movement newsletter

An interview with Dean Frazer

Interview Conducted May of 2002 by Eric Hovey for The Reggae Movement

Reggae Movement (RM): We have been blessed to be here today with Reggae legend Dean Frazer, how are you doing?

Dean Frazier (DF): I’m cool! Give thanks

RM: How long have you been playing with Luciano now?

DF: Well, I’ve been playing with Luciano since 1995.

RM: Rumor has it, your on of the top 5 saxophone players in the world?

DF: No, nothing like that.

RM: When did you start playing saxophone?

DF: About age 13, down in Trenchtown. You know, it was hard to find extra work to do after school in the evenings, so learning to play was the thing to do.

RM: Did you start out playing sax?

DF: Clarinet first, it was something to occupy yourself in the evening

RM: What was the first tune you learned?

DF: Umm, I think the first tune I learned was Hawaii 5-0, TV theme.

RM: Ha, ha , ha(we both laughed)

DF: Ha, ha, ha, ahh also Satta Massagana

RM: How did you get into playing reggae music?

DF: Well after about 6 years playing top 10 music, play like dance bands and all dat. I just one day decided that I wanted to play on records and a couple of studio guys said “yeah come on”. So I went to channel 1 and Joe Gibbs studios, I started out with Dennis Brown & all those people.

RM: Your on several, almost every reggae album I own, especially the most recent ones

DF: Well I have been doing a lot of work that way the past 10 years.

RM: Out of all the Artists you have played with, who has been your favorite?

DF: Umm well, I would have to say: Peter Tosh, you know…..I had only one chance to play with Bob Marley and that was on the Survival Album. But I played like 3 albums with Peter Tosh, I really enjoyed working with him you know.

RM: What was it about Peter Tosh?

DF: The music some how……I just got into the music, there was a lot of space there for improvisation and thought. For some reason the Wanted and Mama Africa albums there was room for work. I just enjoyed filling those spaces.

RM: What role have you played in creating the popular riddims of today?

DF: To reproduce a lot of these studio 1 stuff you would have had to study that stuff as a young musician, which I did as a youth. So automatically those old horn parts and everything is stuck in my head.

RM: It was just recreating

DF: Right, and I usually improve on top of it also. Some days I would go into the studio and feel like yeah well its time to change this. I would just recreate, but then you would had to learn what was there first.

RM: How much practice is involved before you go on tour?

DF: Well we have at least a week before we go on tour.

RM: How do you prepare from touring with one musician to another?

DF: Usually rehearsal is not a great problem for me, I basically have my whole repertoire. I basically just need to know what the artist needs so I can do my own thing:

RM: Respect; Thanks very much!!!!!!!

Dean Frazer is one of reggae’s well respected musician’s Unfortunately I only had about 5 minutes to talk with him, but we found out some great information about him.

REGGAEmovement.com SKAmovement.com BLUESmovement.com MovementPresents.com