Not to be confused with the swing-oriented uncle after whom he was named, the younger Ted Nash has established himself as a tenor and alto saxophonist at home in hard bop and post-bop settings while also embracing experimental avant-garde contexts. Raised in Los Angeles, Nash encountered jazz early through his father, trombonist Dick Nash, and through his uncle, a reedman and studio musician whose career included work with Les Brown during the 1940s and Henry Mancini during the 1960s. He began on piano at age seven, took up the clarinet at twelve, and switched to alto saxophone at thirteen. While still in high school he studied improvisation under vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake; at sixteen he received his first significant opportunity when Lionel Hampton hired him for a week-long engagement in Hawaii. By seventeen Nash had already assumed the lead alto chair in Quincy Jones’ orchestra and was appearing regularly with the groups of Louie Bellson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Don Ellis. Upon reaching eighteen in 1978 he cut his debut album as a leader, Conception, for Concord Jazz and relocated permanently to New York, where he soon joined the Gerry Mulligan Big Band. Throughout the 1980s he worked as a sideman on recordings by Shoemake and Shelly Manne, became a member of the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, and contributed both solos and arrangements to that ensemble. In the following decade he led his own quartet while also appearing as a sideman with Bellson, Wynton Marsalis, Joe Lovano, and bassist Ben Allison; it was Allison who enlisted him in the Herbie Nichols Project, an ensemble devoted to the music of the underrecognized bop pianist Herbie Nichols. During the 1990s Nash also recorded under his own name for Mapleshade and the French label Elabeth. Since the turn of the millennium he has continued to record for Palmetto both as a leader and as a sideman.
