Dean Fraser

Well supported

Dean Ivanhoe Fraser (born 4 August 1957, Kingston) is the saxophone voice of modern reggae — a player on thousands of sessions since the mid-1970s, and latterly one of its most influential producers and bandleaders. He took up clarinet at twelve and saxophone at fifteen, and met Ronald "Nambo" Robinson and Junior "Chico" Chin at a Jones Town youth club; the three became the foremost horn section in 1980s Jamaica. He joined Lloyd Parks' We The People Band in 1977, backing Dennis Brown on his Joe Gibbs recordings, and cut his own first album, Black Horn Man, for Gibbs in 1978, followed by Pure Horns and Double Dynamite (1979) and Revolutionary Sounds for Donovan Germain (1980). He played in the horn section behind the Roots Radics alongside Vin Gordon, Nambo Robinson, Dirty Harry Hall, Bobby Ellis and Deadly Headly Bennett. From the late 1990s he toured and recorded extensively with Luciano, and later became the producer and bandleader behind Tarrus Riley and Duane Stephenson — his production credits include Stephenson's "August Town" and Morgan Heritage's "Down by the River", with further work for Sanchez, Freddie McGregor and Bunny Rugs. Jamaica awarded him the Musgrave Medal in 1993.