Frank Strozier born June 13, 1937

Frank R. Strozier Jr. (born June 13, 1937) is a jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, pianist and composer whose contributions remain insufficiently known and appreciated by the wider jazz community.

Strozier was born in Memphis, Tennessee, where he learned to play piano. In 1954, after high school, he moved to Chicago, where he studied clarinet at the Chicago Conservatory of Music and performed with other Memphis musicians such as Harold Mabern, George Coleman, and Booker Little, and also played with Walter Perkins group MJT+3 (recording in 1959-60) and led sessions for Vee-Jay Records during that period.

                              

In 1959 he moved to New York, where he appeared with Miles Davis for a brief period n 1963 (alongside Hank Mobley and George Coleman) and with Roy Haynes's quartet. After six years in Los Angeles, during which he performed with Chet Baker (recording in 1965) and groups led by Shelly Manne (1965-c1967) and Don Ellis (1968), he returned to New York in 1971. 

He joined the Jazz Contemporaries, led by drummer Keno Duke (recording in 1974), and the New York Jazz Repertory Company. He recorded as a leader for Trident (1972) and Steeple Chase (1976-1977) and also played with Horace Parlan (1977). Strozier was a dynamic and committed performer with a blues-based style that enlivened any context in which he appeared. His tone and phrasing had a biting edge reminiscent of Jackie McLean's playing.

He played  and recorded with Woody Shaw in 1978, and with Louis Hayes and Stafford James in 1979. Frustrated with his lack of work, Strozier dropped out of the music scene by the mid-1980s. On March 31, 1990, he made his piano debut in a trio setting at Weill Recital Hall in New York which was favourably reviewed by a critic in Cadence Magazine. But since then, little has been heard of Strozier who left music to become a teacher of math and/or science in schools in Westchester County, New York.

(Limited information edited from New Grove Dictionary of Music, Wikipedia & AllMusic)