Word: bandness
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...Harvard Band took the stage soon after, and the crowd sang along to catchy tunes like the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” and Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline...
Fred Ho ’79—baritone saxophonist, composer, band leader, political activist, and Marxist—is a pretty remarkable guy. He aspires to create multicultural and deeply political music by blending avant-garde jazz and African American music with Asian influences, and he actively fuses his roles as an artist and political activist to create a uniquely expressive identity for himself. Last Friday, Ho was honored with the Fall 2009 Harvard Arts Medal, which is awarded by the Office for the Arts to an alumni “who has made a special contribution...
...Saturday’s performance, Thomas Everett, Director of Bands at Harvard, paid homage to Ho’s unique sound, likening him to other jazz greats whose personalities and musical voices were inseparable. “You heard one note—Lester Young—and that was his voice,” Everett declared. “I hear the same thing in Fred’s baritone.” Ho’s playing is aggressive, sharp, often filled with wailing shrieks and guttural burps, but it always remains expansive and lyrical...
...development in Ho’s philosophy that occurred after he was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2006. His entire approach to music has become part of a much more organic, earth-conscious process, and he is now focusing on a new project, the Green Monster Big Band. “The old Fred Ho that engaged in whatever produced the toxicity that led to my cancer, that path cannot be returned to now. I’m a part-time farmer now, farmer Fred. I’m about four years old now,” he says...
...hoping to bring “Take the Zen Train” and the Green Monster Big Band to New York venues soon. In the meantime, he is working on getting his Cancer Diaries published, and he continues advocating the lifelong social message he believes in. “It’s a mistake, an illusion to think that art is not political. All art is, even when it professes to not be. Because, even by not being political it simply rubberstamps the status quo,” he explains, adding, “[Art is] a sledgehammer against...