Home-Grown

Tia Fuller is a home-grown star. The soundtrack to her childhood is listening her musician parents practice in the basement of their Aurora family home, Mom a singer and dad on bass. Add to that a stream of music from the likes of John Coltrane, Sarah Vaughan and Charlie Parker, so it came as little surprise when Tia began to excel on the saxophone at Chaparral High School. Her music studies continued at Spelman College in Atlanta, where she once had the opportunity to play with Ray Charles, and then earned a master’s degree from CU in Jazz Pedagogy and Performance.

It’s no longer accurate to describe Fuller, who was born in 1976, as a local talent – her star has clearly ascended to the national stage. She has performed with a long list of jazz notables, including Esperanza Spalding; Fuller famously played the sax in concert with Spalding’s scat singing. She played with Nancy Wilson’s Jazz Orchestra, the T.S. Monk Septet and Terri Lyne Carrington. She spent a year touring with Beyonce, a gig which landed her at the White House playing for President Obama.  So far, her career has taken her to Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe.

Fuller is also a composer and has led a distinguished quarter in the creation of three albums: Pillar of Strength, Healing Space and Decisive Steps.  And as if this weren’t keeping her busy enough, she is a full-time professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. A true lover of jazz, she is dedicated to the principle of giving back, working  with tomorrow’s upcoming jazz geniuses.