Roger Cloutier

Instruments: Saxophone
Styles: Jazz, Rock, Blues
Musical Education: Grant Macewan College - Saxophone, Jazz Performance, Jazz Studies
Languages: English, French

Roger's started out by playing guitar in his father’s old time band; there, he learned polkas, waltzes and music from many other cultures. His uncle - who played trombone for the CBC from the late 1950’s up to 1980 - was a big musical influence on his life.

Musical influences early on entailed everyone from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, to the blues influenced British invasion of Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood. Later he found the names of BB King, Ray Charles, and John Coltrane on the albums of the early rock icons, who cited the aforementioned as their musical influences. He listened and explored, but there were too many names and influences to mention here.

Roger has extensive experience working with children and families as a social worker of 30+ years. Roger attended the jazz program at Grant MacEwan (now Grant Macewan) in Edmonton Alberta, majoring in saxophone, jazz performance, and jazz studies. He sang and played saxophones for the Million Civilians band during the 1980’s and 1990’s, who played Motown, Rock/Pop, and Afro-beat. He studied Latin music in Puerto Vallarta. Recently, he has played tenor sax for the University of Winnipeg downtown jazz band, and the Nafro Band since the 1990’s.