Photo : Franck Vorgers
www.stevepotts.net

Born January 21 1943 in Columbus, Ohio, Steve Potts comes from a family of musicians. At a very early age, he was fascinated by the saxophone after having heard his uncle, Buddy Tate, play sax in Count Basie’s orchestra. While simultaneously studying architecture in Los Angeles, he also studied music with Charles Lloyd.
But he dedicated himself to music after that by moving to New York to study with Eric Dolphy. He became friend with Ron Carter both and requented Coltrane, Tony Williams, Jimmy Garrison, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. He played with Roy Ayers, Chick Corea, Larry Coryell, Richard Davis, Joe Henderson, Reggie Workman and Chico Hamilton, the latter of whom he worked with for four years.
In 1970, leaving behind his New York life, Steve left to launch himself in Europe. He landed in Paris, and immediately started working with Brigitte Fontaine and

performing with Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Slide Hampton, Mal Waldron, Ben Webster… not to mention the Art Ensemble of Chicago. He formed his own group in 1973 with Christian Escoudé, Boulou Ferré, Oliver Johnson and Gus Nemeth. He also met Steve Lacy at this time.

They traveled the world performing and recording for many years together. This did not prevent Steve Potts from leading other projects such as accompanying Jessye Norman in 1982, or working with the African group Ghetto Blaster in 1986, or composing film music. He created a new group in 1990 and recorded the CD « Pearl » with Richard Galliano, Jean-Jacques Avenel and Bertrand Renaudin. His present quartet is composed of Michael Felberbaum, Stéphane Persiani et Richard Portier featured on « Wet Spot ». As eclectic as ever, he just recorded with Imaran a group of Touareg musicians.

around 20 albums with Steve LACY (1972-1995), Alan PARSON’s Projet (1979), « Great day in the morning » with Jessye NORMAN (1982), « Cross Roads » with Sugar BLUE (1979), « People » with GHETTO BLASTER (1986), « La nuit Bengali » original movie soundtrack (1988), « Pearl » (1990), « Thank you for being » with Peter GRITZ (1995), « Mukta » with World Music group Mukta (1998), « Louise (Take 2) » original movie soundtrack (1999), « Wet Spot » (2000), “Lonely Woman” with Claudine François