artists
Victor Fox
Victor Fox © Jakob Jaeger
Music with many faces: between alter ego and the avant-garde.
The ‘MF DOOM of the saxophone’? The comparison holds true insofar as Victor Fox seems to have a similar number of personas. And then, of course, there’s the mask. Yet reducing this multi-instrumentalist to his stage outfit does him no justice whatsoever. His projects move in a wide variety of directions, ranging from contemporary improvisation and jazz to modern popular music.
This 26-year-old musician has nearly a decade of musical training behind him, including at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. Sometimes as a composer, sometimes as a saxophonist, sometimes as a bass clarinettist – or all of the above – he can be found in a wide variety of ensembles and projects. With his sextet, he released his second album , *PYTHON*, at the start of the year. Developed over three years, it features dense compositions that constantly shift between melancholic, energetic, fragile and anarchic moments – contemporary jazz with little room for stagnation. For his solo and other band projects, he has adopted an alter ego: BIG BREEEZY wears a bespoke mask that allows the artist to immerse himself in completely new musical worlds, inspired by rap freestyle and hip-hop grooves. With his band projects MUMBLE MAFIA and BIG BREEEZY & The Toxic Twinz, he explores the boundaries of the saxophone and his music beyond established venues for jazz and improvised music – and not without the odd head-bobbing moment.
His projects demonstrate a deep engagement with tradition and the pioneering work of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and J Dilla. At the same time, however, he always keeps an eye on the artists shaping the contemporary sound, such as Playboi Carti and Future. The result is music that does not merely reference historical influences, but blends them with contemporary sounds, forms and perspectives. At the heart of this lies the search for new connections – between jazz and hip-hop, improvisation and electronic music.