Avram Fefer (born 1965[1]) is an American jazz saxophonist, composer and band leader, currently residing in New York City. He has been performing and recording internationally since 1990. After spending the decade as a soloist with a number of different groups, his first several recordings as a leader were singled out as among the Best of 2001 and Best of 2002 in publications such as Down Beat, Cadence, the Village Voice, the Chicago Weekly Standard, and JazzPortugal. He has four releases with the jazz pianist Bobby Few, and has performed in most of the major clubs in New York, as well as numerous clubs and festivals in Europe, Africa, Japan, and the Middle East. His latest recording, Eliyahu, featuring Eric Revis on bass and Chad Taylor on drums, was released on Not Two Records [1] in 2011.
Avram grew up on both coasts of the United States, received a liberal arts degree at Harvard University and studied music at Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory. He spent several years in Paris, where he played with Archie Shepp, The Last Poets, Sunny Murray, Kirk Lightsey, Jack Gregg, Rasul Siddik, Graham Haynes, and John Betsch. It was also in Paris that Avram first became interested in West African and Arabic music, playing with a variety of musicians from Senegal, Cameroon, Mali, and Morocco. He was also a composer and soloist for an “acid” jazz group in France with two top-selling discs on Virgin records (1994–95).
In New York, Fefer continues to compose music and lead numerous groups of his own, releasing ten CDs as a leader and appearing on numerous others as a sideman. He has also been featured in the David Murray Big Band, Butch Morris Orchestra, Joseph Bowie Big Band, Mingus Big Band, Frank Lacy's Vibe Tribe, the Rob Reddy Octet, Famoro Diabate’s Kakande, the Adam Lane Octet, the Michael Bisio Quartet, Adam Rudolph's Organic Orchestra, and Burnt Sugar. He has a private music teaching practice in downtown Manhattan and collaborates with a variety of creative artists of different genres, most recently with famed director Melvin Van Peebles on his 2010 theatrical production of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, in which Avram acted, as well as played tenor sax.