We Refuse To Be Used And Abused

One of the leading composers of his generation, New York-based Chinese-American saxophonist and sociologist Fred Ho (born Fred Wei-han Houn in Palo Alto) founded the Monkey Orchestra (1980), the Asian-American Art Ensemble (1981) and the Afro-Asian Music Ensemble (1982), all of them fusing Western and Eastern instruments and influenced by Charles Mingus' big bands.
His recordings include: Tomorrow Is Now (Soul Note, 1986), Bamboo That Snaps Back (Finnadar, 1987), A Song for Manong (AsianImprov, 1988), We Refuse to be Used and Abused (november 1987), that contains the suite Never Broken Always Outspoken; the Asian-American Art Ensemble's The Underground Railroad to My Heart (recorded in 1993), that contains recordings from several sessions and in particular the suite The Underground Railroad to My Heart (december 1991); the Monkey Orchestra's Monkey Part One (october 1996) and Monkey Part Two (october 1996), that collect the Chinese-jazz hybrid multimedia work Journey Beyond the West; the Afro Asian Music Ensemble's ten-movement suite Turn Pain Into Power (OO Discs, 1997), that contains the 17-minute Turn Pain into Power/ The Climbers/ Essay to Us; Yes Means Yes, No Means No, Whatever She Says, Wherever She Goes (december 1996), the double CD Warrior Sisters (january 1998) the vampyre opera Night Vision (Big Red Media, 1999), The Way of the Saxophone (Innova, 2000), the 12-movement theater piece Once Upon a Time in Chinese America (december 1999), that also requires dancers and kungfu fighters, the dvd The Black Panther Suite (Innova, 2003), Red Arc - A Call for Liberacion (2005), a collaboration with a poet, and Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon (premiered in june 2006).
He also played in the Brooklyn Sax Quartet, co-founded with composer and arranger David Bindman in 1997: The Way Of Saxophone (july 2000) (featuring Ho on baritone, Chris Jonas on soprano, Sam Furnace on alto and David Bindman on tenor) and Far Side Of Here (october 2003 and may 2004) with John O'Gallagher on soprano and Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto, and with most compositions still written by Bindman, notably The Black Nation.