Bud Freeman

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Bud Freeman, New York, 1947. Image: William P. Gottlieb

Lawrence "Bud" Freeman (born April 13, 1906 in Chicago , Illinois , † March 15, 1991 in Chicago) was an American tenor saxophonist .

biography

In the early 1920s, he joined a jazz group of white high school students later known as the Austin High School Gang . On the weekends the band, including Bud Freeman, visited the Lincoln Garden Club to hear Joe “King” Oliver’s jazz band . Freeman later said of Oliver's band: “There was nothing else like it on earth.” (“It was unique in this world.”)

In 1927 he co-founded the McKenzie - Condon Chicagoans and moved to New York. There he worked with Roger Wolfe Kahn , Ben Pollack , Joe Venuti and Ray Noble , among others . Freeman was the main soloist on the recording of Eddie Condon's "The Eel" in 1933. In 1936 he played with Tommy Dorsey and in 1938 in Benny Goodman's orchestra , which he left after a year.

From 1939–1940 he directed the short-lived Summa Cum Laude Orchestra with Max Kaminsky , Pee Wee Russell and Eddie Condon . During the Second World War he led a band in the military for two years. After the war he played regularly with Eddie Condon and traveled the world as a jazz soloist.

Bud Freeman helped found the “ World's Greatest Jazz Band ” in 1968 and stayed for three years before he left to continue his career as a soloist. After a brief stint in London in the late 1970s, he went back to Chicago. He continued to play until his poor health forced him to give up music in the 1980s.

Bud Freeman died in Chicago, Illinois, when he was almost 85 years old. His recordings with the jazz and big band drummer Gene Krupa in the late 1920s became classics of Chicago jazz such as the Jazz Classics 1927–1928. Many experts describe him - together with Coleman Hawkins - as one of the first important tenor saxophonists in jazz; his musical and stylistic influence on the great Lester Young is unmistakable.

Discographic notes

Bud Freeman with Frankie Laine (left), New York, between 1938 and 1948. Photo: Gottlieb

Bud Freeman's early work from 1928 to 1946 is documented in the productions of the Classics company .

collection

literature

  • Bud Freeman autobiography (1989): Crazeology: The Autobiopraphy of a Chicago Jazzman . ISBN 0-252-01634-3
personal data
SURNAME Freeman, Bud
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Freeman, Lawrence
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American tenor saxophonist
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1991
Place of death Chicago