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Welcome to the official website of Ted Hefko, saxophonist, vocalist, and songwriter.

Since moving to New York, from New Orleans, some five years ago, Ted has been busy leading his own band, Ted Hefko and The Thousandaires, featuring some of the City's most talented players, working and recording with some great bands as a sideman along the way.

With his new release, Egyptland, the sound of Hefko's music has come to encompass elements of the folk-music he learned on guitar as a teenager, delta blues, sixties folk rock as well as New Orleans Funk and R&B. Powerful vocals and original insightful lyrics complement his mature, robust tenor sax sound as his compositions are given room to breathe in a variety of settings with some great New York musicians, such as guitarist Nick Russo, bassists Ben Rubin, Peter Maness and drummers Diego Voglino, and fellow Madison transplant Jason Ewald. “Egyptland,” also reflects time spent recording in Austin, Texas, with award-winning producer, Madison native and long time friend Adam Ahrens.

Ted was born in the mid-seventies in Madison, Wisconsin. a town where the hippies won and colorful murals and rusting VW Microbuses dotted the streets. His dad had a reel-to-reel tape player with bootlegs of Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, Fela Kuti and he had plenty of records too: Miles Davis, Albert King, Pharoah Sanders, Dylan. He formed his own group in high school playing guitar and saxophone and studied with an avant-garde sax player named Hanah Jon Taylor.
Catfish Stephenson was also a big influence in Madison.

Interview in 77 Square anticipates Ted's recent trip to Madison:
Ted Hefko's homecoming keeps him busy

From this bohemian enclave, he ventured out. He saved up money working at a fast food restaurant and traveled to New Orleans for The Jazz and Heritage Festival when he was seventeen.

New Orleans in the 1990's was full of legends and unsung greats and a wide array of musicians cross-pollinating, and Ted took full advantage of this diversity working with everbody from jazz greats like Warren Battiste, to R&B vocalist Tondrae to merengue bands such as Los Sagitarios. Ted also had the opportunity work side by side with some great players and learned a lot about music from cats like Kufaru Mouton (now deceased), Jerry Jumonville, Jerry “Flipper” Magere and Tyrone Dispenza. He earned a B.F.A. in Jazz Saxophone at the University of New Orleans, where Ellis Marsalis held court. There he studied with Chicago sax great Ed Petersen as well as Steve Masakowski of Astral Project and producer/composer Harold Battiste. By the time he graduated he was already on the road with a jazz-jam band called idletime, in support of their 2000 Louisiana Redhot Records release. The band toured nationally for over two years.