by Manuel Gonzales

Fredrick Sanders is a friendly, soft-spoken jazz pianist who has been a notable in Austin's growing jazz scene for the past three years. You can find him playing with the Haslanger Septet at the Elephant Room (that dimly-lit, smoke-filled basement of jazz) and in the warehouse district's cigar and martini breezeway, Cedar Street. And, tickling on the raised stage of the newly renovated Mercury, he is an essential member of Hot Buttered Rhythm, a recently formed band of back-line artists adding funk and crunch to originals and standards. Fred Sanders has performed with (and learned from) jazz clarinet legend Alvin Baptiste, and Austin's own legend, James Polk, tickler of ivories great and small. June really was Jazz month in Austin, and during the week of the Clarksville Jazz Festival (June 8 - June 15), Sanders recorded a CD (with the help of Roy Hargrove, Mark Whitfield, Donald Edwards, Roland Guerin, and Marchel Ivery), jammed with those same cats the next night at Cedar Street, and then flew to Canada with Hot Buttered Rhythm (who have just released a self-titled CD of their own) to represent Austin in SXSW's sister festival NXNE.

Fred Sanders is 27-years-old, and he plays the piano with a smooth and assured eloquence. His fingers, at times light across the keys, are relaxed, and, as he plays, his face is creased with a large smile, reflected in his eyes and in his groove and in his tunes. His style is clean and experimental, and free of the cluttering flourishes often found in less skilled and less talented and less passionate performers. Fredrick Sanders knows what he wants and knows how to play, and his presence is a cool and refreshing blessing to Austin jazz.

Originally from Dallas, he has lived in San Marcos for three years and has been attending Southwest Texas State University each of those years. Before coming to the Austin area, Sanders studied in Weatherford, just outside of Ft. Worth, and then moved to Baton Rouge to study under clarinet great Alvin Baptiste. "I moved to Weatherford because the guys in the band moved, and I left Weatherford and went to Louisiana because of [Baptiste, Whitfield, Edwards, Guerin, and Ivery]. I had the chance to play one concert with them. I had already met Alvin Baptiste at a wedding, and I thought to myself, 'Oh my, I've got to study with this cat!' because I could hear his difference when he played. So I went down there for two, two and a half, three years. Before I moved to Louisiana, I spent the summer in Weatherford gigging and fixing my car, and I had sixty dollars in my pockets and drove to Baton Rouge and just moved in. Those cats didn't know I was there, they didn't know I was coming, or what. Baptiste didn't have a scholarship or nothin' for me, but within a week, I figured out a way to enroll in school. But I won't get into that because I think I might still owe somebody money down there...Alvin Baptiste is everything wrapped up in one -- great musician, musicologist, philosopher, stylist -- he has the whole package. It was an amazing experience for me, coming from the Weatherford program where everybody was serious about the music, and moving into their environment, a whole 'nother level, where not only were the people serious about the music, they were dedicated to improving themselves. Even just the amount of information I was able to receive changed. There are only one or two places in this world where you can go and become enlightened. And then I ran out of money. I didn't want to leave the tutelage of Baptiste, but I had to make sure I found an area where I could make some money and finish school. So I started searching for a place to come back to in Texas because it was cheaper for me to finish school in Texas, and I thought about going to North Texas, in Denton, but I already knew all those cats because when I was studying in Weatherford, we would drive up to Denton every weekend and play in a jam session. Back then, we played for pizza. So I knew what the scene was like in Denton. I thought about San Antonio, but, well, I don't know a lot of Mariachi music, so I told myself, Let me go check out what it's like in Austin. I took a trip and checked out the Elephant Room. I'd heard that was the jazz spot in town, and this cat, James Polk, he's playing piano, and like with Baptiste, I said, 'There's somebody special! I would like to study with that cat.' So I moved to Austin. I was broke again, like when I moved to Louisiana. I was married by then, and my wife had a semester left in school. But things worked out. Things always, eventually, work out."

Fredrick Sanders is now in his last leg of the SWT music program. After graduation, he plans to go to Disneyland (no joke) with his wife and their baby, whose arrival is expected in October. He wants to move from San Marcos into Austin proper. He wants a house and a yard and a dog. He is a musician, and he wants to play. For himself, for his family, for other musicians, and for us. When I spoke with him about the Cedar Street jam during the jazz fest, he asked me to thank you, every one of you. Everyone who was there, listening to him and Roy create an amazing and fitting night of jazz. He sends his compliments to all those at the Cedar Street jam. The energy was high and it was fed by the groove. That groove between audience and performer. That groove which takes a note or a solo or a phrase and makes it real. Makes it life. That groove is the ideal. Utopia. What we all search for, as those who play great and beautiful music and those who appreciate the sounds of great and beautiful music. Tuesday night, June 10th, Cedar Street struck that groove and made it hum. But just you watch. You can find that groove, El Dorado, any night of the week in Fredrick Sanders' smile.