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Mark Fox

About Me

My Jazz Story

When I was 3 years old, my uncle gave me a coronet and I actually could get a sound out of it back then. Between then and 12 years old I tried the coronet, violin and trumpet, then settled on the saxophone. In high school, I was invited by the band director to play in the jazz band and never looked back from that day. My best friend in high school sat me down one day, and put on John Coltrane's "Expressions", and said to me that "...this is jazz...". That was a wrap... and so the journey began. As a young man, I went to Berklee College of music, and studied under George Garzone. After a year at Berklee and a couple in Boston, I chose to complete my higher education at UMass, Amherst, where Archie Shepp, Yusef Lateef, Billy Taylor & Max Roach were on faculty at the time, not to mention Marion Brown, Stephen McCraven and a host of other heavies in the area. My intention was to get up under Archie Shepp & Yusef Lateef, which came to pass, and was the beginning of my professional career in the music world. Moving to NYC in 1990, I cut my teeth on the NY scene and eventually started playing with Warren Smith's Composers Workshop Ensemble, the Boy's Harbor Latin Jazz Big Band, and hosts of other great artists on the NYC scene. Concurrently, I met and began to work with George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars in the mid-90's. As well, I produced a massive benefit concert for mentor, friend and jazz legend, Marion Brown, who'd suffered a series of strokes, brain aneurism and surgery, and was recovering in a not so cool Brooklyn recovery facility. The concert was 14+hrs long, featuring a who's-who cast of jazz greats, including Archie Shepp, Amina Meyers, Reggie Workman, several members of the World Sax Quartet, Bill Lee and the Family Tree and droves of other grand masters of the art, plus an art auction of Marion's water colors. This consequentially and accidentally opened a door for me to produce broadcast television and films, which shifted my career for over 20 years. My passions never left for the music and I ended up doing numerous films on music, jazz, music videos and live concert captures during my multifaceted film career, and I never put down my horn or ngoni over the period of my professional hiatus. A few years back now, following getting sober and finally maturing on an emotional and spiritual level, I have returned full force to the music world on a full-time professional basis. Following putting the Mark Fox Quartet+ together in the Fall of 2015, we were offered a record deal at the debut concert the band performed. Into the studio in December of 2015, we have continued to play and grow over the past months, and are now releasing our debut album, "Three Octaves Above the Sun" at Dazzle Jazz, the premiere jazz club in the Denver, CO market. Scott Thompson PR has come on board as our publicist and we are currently working toward touring internationally and ongoing on the top levels of the jazz market.