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Rodger Fox

Self-directed, enthusiastic educator, with a passionate commitment to student development in learning and performance experience. Lead by example and motivate and encourage people to extend themselves to perform above of their expected skill level. Active team member who effectively collaborates with all levels of staff members and establishes quality relationships with students. Successfully implemented events, from major national and international tours for many artists and bands, through to promotional and performance opportunities for Victoria University groups at the New Zealand School of Music

Recorded 36 albums/CDs including two live recordings at the Montreux Jazz Festival, one at the Vanguard Studio’s in New York City which featured premier jazz artists Guitarist John Scofield, Bassist Ron McClure and Trumpeter Tom Harrell, one at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, Concerti featuring New Zealand international acclaimed classical pianist Michael Houstoun and "King of the Blues" featuring Chris Cain plus Other recordings have featured performances by Bobby Shew, Bill Reichenbach, Gary Grant, Bill Cunliffe, Jon Papenbrook,Tom Warrington and Steve Houghton, Randy Crawford, plus a host of New Zealand stars.

Awards

Six Tui awards for “New Zealand Jazz Recordings of the Year”. 1984, 2001, 2004,2006, 2009, 2011

Gear

Yamaha Z897, King 2Bplus and Bach 6

Rodger Fox Big Band Featuring King Kapisi: The Brotherman Project

Read "The Brotherman Project" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 6, 2024

If nothing--no matter how peculiar or aberrant--is undertaken without a reason, trombonist Rodger Fox, whose big band is the finest New Zealand has to offer, must have had his reasons for recording the band's newest album with the country's leading hip-hop artist, King Kapisi. As jazz, like hip-hop, is an acquired taste, it is fruitless for someone who admires and appreciates one to impugn the other. It is what it is. And so we have King Kapisi ...

Album Review

Rodger Fox Big Band: Plays Hone Tuwhare

Read "Plays Hone Tuwhare" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
January 23, 2023

New Zealand's flagship jazz ensemble, the Rodger Fox Big Band, marks its fiftieth anniversary with an impressive homage to “the people's poet," Hone Tuwhare (1922-2008), on the centenary of his birth. As is pointed out in the album's liner notes, Tuwhare “was loved and cherished by New Zealanders from all walks of life. Touring tirelessly, Hone shared his talent and inspired audiences in every corner of the country from primary and secondary schools to universities, factories to art galleries and ...

Album Review

The Rodger Fox Big Band: Reimagined! The Roger Fox big Band Plays Sir Dave Dobbyn

Read "Reimagined! The Roger Fox big Band Plays Sir Dave Dobbyn" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 15, 2022

On Reimagined!, New Zealander Rodger Fox's superlative big band takes a fresh look at the music of Sir Dave Dobbyn, one of that country's most honored and beloved musicians. Although Dobbyn has spent his celebrated career in the fields of pop and rock, his evocative compositions lend themselves well to light and swinging interpretations by Fox's seventeen-member ensemble and more than half a dozen well-known guest artists from the U.S. Even so, there is enough heavy backbeat ...

Album Review

Rodger Fox Big Band: You Gotta Know

Read "You Gotta Know" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
January 6, 2022

As trombonist Rodger Fox's superb New Zealand-based big band thunders toward its golden anniversary in 2023, the recordings keep coming. Here are two more, the first (Live) taped in October 2020 during what must have been a much longer concert at the Bruce Mason Centre in Auckland; the second, You Gotta Know, recorded that same year in Brooklyn, New York, following the band's appearance at the Jazz Education Network conference in New Orleans. The concert date features guest pianist Michael ...

Album Review

The Rodger Fox Big Band: Plays New Zealand

Read "Plays New Zealand" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 20, 2021

Even though such news would hardly make a ripple beyond the South Pacific, trombonist Rodger Fox's superlative big band was nearing its golden anniversary when Plays New Zealand was recorded in 2021. As the milestone loomed only two years in the distance, Fox decided it was time the band produced an album devoted entirely to new works written and arranged by his fellow countrymen and women. And so the excellent Plays New Zealand may be more accurately named “plays New ...

Album Review

The Rodger Fox Big Band: Plays New Zealand

by Jack Bowers
September 21, 2016

Although trombonist Rodger Fox has somehow managed to keep New Zealand's finest big band alive and swinging for more than four decades, the band has never devoted an entire album to music written and arranged by New Zealanders--until now. That's not to say that Fox and the band have ignored music from their home country. Over the years, more than ninety compositions by New Zealand-based musicians have been commissioned for the ensemble, sixty-eight of which have made it onto various ...

Album Review

New Zealand School of Music Big Band: Too Cool

by Jack Bowers
August 28, 2015

While the latest CD by the splendid New Zealand School of Music Big Band may not be Too Cool, it's definitely chilly enough to demand that the average listener wear earmuffs while sampling its frigid yet at the same time fiery bill of fare. Blues got you down? A few bars of the orchestra's sunny curtain-raiser, Bill Liston's “Blues to Begin With," should cast them into the nearest dustbin. If not, you may be too far gone to benefit from ...