Oz Fritz

Producer and Engineer Oz Fritz

Oz Fritz has been a professional sound engineer for more than 25 years working in both recording studio and live concert environments. He has collaborated on over 60 projects with producer Bill Laswell that include L. Shankar, Material, Ginger Baker, Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Herbie Hancock, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Sonny Sharrock, William S. Burroughs , Bob Marley, Icehouse and Yothu Yindi. Other studio credits include John Cale, Ornette Coleman, D.J. Disk, Digital Underground, Jungle Brothers, Golden Palominos, Information Society, Meat Loaf, and Rick Derringer

In the last few years Oz has engineered releases by Paris Combo (went to #1 on the Billboard World Music charts), Wanda Jackson (featuring The Cramps, Elvis Costello and Dave Alvin), Tabla Beat Science featuring (Bill Laswell and Zakir Hussein), Oysterhead (Les Claypool, Stewart Copeland and Trey Anastasio from Phish), legendary Cuban pianist Pepecito Reyes, the Grammy award winning Mule Variations by Tom Waits, as well as Alice and Blood Money by Waits, Anti-Pop by Primus, and Wicked Grin by John Hammond (produced by Tom Waits). He also mixed songs for a VH1 Storyteller’s show by Waits, and recorded and mixed half of Monsters and Robots by Buckethead. He recorded Havana Mood and Imaginary Cuba in Havana and engineered a couple of tracks on the gold record Lado B Lado A by the Brazillian pop group O Rappa all with producer Bill Laswell.

Fritz has done many on-site field recordings around the world including the acclaimed Apocalypse Across The Sky by the Master Musicians of Jajouka. Recently he’s recorded and mixed several of the top musicians in Bamako, Mali for the maverick Kanaga System Krush label. Artists such as djembe master Abdoul Doumbia, The Bari Ensemble, Mady Keita and Lobi Traore. Oz also engineered Jali Kunda, a history of Griot music, spearheaded by Bill Laswell and Foday Musa Suso. Additional field recording locations include India and the Australian Outback. Oz has engineered in state-of-the-art recording studios in Tokyo, London, Paris, Madras, Sydney, Havana, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles. and New York.

His live mixing credits (all front-of-house) include Tom Waits’ Mule Variations tour, Painkiller with Bill Laswell and John Zorn, Jack de Johnette, Material (Laswell, Foday Musa Suso and Ginger Baker), Third Rail (James Blood Ulmer, Bernie Worrell, Laswell and others), Jai Uttal and the Pagan Love Orchestra and, most recently, Tabla Beat Science featuring Laswell, Zakir Hussein, Sultan Khan and Gigi.

Oz was also the chief engineer on the Flying Mijinko tour, a cultural exchange series of concerts sponsored by the Japanese government. This tour, put together by Akira Sakata and featuring Bill Laswell, Foday Suso, Anton Fier and many others, played throughout Central Asia, China, Mongolia and Japan. A double live cd documenting the trip was recorded and mixed by Fritz.