Fraser MacPherson

Fraser MacPherson

Fraser MacPherson, jazz musician (b at Winnipeg 10 Apr 1928, d at Vancouver 29 Sep 1993). Fraser MacPherson began his career in Vancouver circa 1950, playing saxophone in Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (and later TV) orchestras and local nightclubs. He was bandleader at The Cave from 1964 to 1970. A prominent member of the city's jazz scene during the 1950s and 1960s, he emerged internationally in the late 1970s with a mainstream-styled trio that included guitarist Oliver Gannon and featured his own assured though unassuming tenor saxophone work.

The trio toured in the USSR (1978, 1981, 1984, 1986) and Europe (1979). MacPherson also performed in Australia (1986) and on occasion in the US. Among the 10 LPs and CDs issued under MacPherson's name (two of them posthumously) by US and Canadian companies, a duet album with Gannon, I Didn't Know About You, won a Juno award in 1983. Later titles, with Gannon and others, included Jazz Prose and Honey and Spice....

Fraser MacPherson was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1987. In 1993, the Fraser MacPherson Scholarship Fund was initiated by the Pacific Music Industry Association. The Fund supports young instrumentalists under the age of 25 who play jazz music and wish to further their musical education.