A Tribute To Iconoclastic Sax Man Von Freeman
“They said I played out of tune, played a lot of wrong notes, a lot of weird ideas. But it didn’t matter, because I didn’t have to worry about the money – I wasn’t making (hardly) any. I didn’t have to worry about fame – I didn’t have any. I was free.”
Chicago jazz legend Von Freeman died Saturday of heart failure. Here’s a roundup of some beautiful remembrances and some essential video.
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“Revered around the world but never a major star, worshipped by critics and connoisseurs but perpetually strapped for cash, the towering Chicago tenor saxophonist Von Freeman practically went out of his way to avoid commercial success,” Howard Reich writes for the Tribune.
“When trumpeter Miles Davis phoned Freeman, in the 1950s, looking for a replacement for John Coltrane, Freeman never returned the call.
“When various bandleaders – from Davis to Billy Eckstine to King Kolax – tried to take him on the road, where his talents could be heard coast to coast, Freeman regularly turned them down. His refusal to leave Chicago during most of his career, except for the briefest out-of-town engagements, cost him incalculable fame and fortune but also enabled him to create some of the most distinctive, innovative work ever played or recorded on a tenor saxophone . . .
“Von Freeman always considered his relative obscurity – which lasted nearly until the final years of his career, when the world started to recognize his genius – a blessing. It enabled him to forge an extremely unusual but instantly recognizable sound, to pursue off-center musical ideas that were not likely to be welcomed in the commercial marketplace.”
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“Born Oct. 3, 1923, Mr. Freeman’s father was a Chicago policeman and amateur jazz trombonist who worked near the old Grand Terrace Ballroom at 35th Street and Calumet Avenue,” Chuck Sudo writes for Chicagoist.
“Through his father, Mr. Freeman’s early exposure to jazz was directly from the stars of the day: Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines. Mr. Freeman was playing professionally at the age of 12 and, like many outstanding local jazz players of his day, honed his musical skills under Captain Walter Dyett at DuSable High School. Dyett’s students are a litany of jazz legends: Dinah Washington, Nat King Cole, Johnny Hartman, Gene Ammons, Johnny Griffin and Clifford Jordan were among Dyett’s students
“After a period of service in the Navy during World War II, Mr. Freeman returned to Chicago and developed a saxophone style that became known as the ‘Chicago style’ of jazz. Inspired by all the gigs he played at the time, his style was equal parts improvisation and intensity, rooted in blues and hard bop. The late saxophonist Fred Anderson said you knew immediately it was Mr. Freeman playing the moment he blew his first note.”
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“Over the last 40 years, Freeman had become known as the indefatigable patron saint of Chicago jazz who, through his storied jam sessions at the New Apartment Lounge, acted as de facto tutor to three generations of Chicago jazz musicians,” Neil Tesser writes for the Examiner.
“He was also the surviving head of Chicago’s First Family of Jazz; his younger brother, guitarist George, survives him, while their eldest sibling, drummer Eldridge (known as ‘Bruz’), died in 2006.
“The subject of countless articles that celebrated his musical freedom, his buoyant personality, and his ability (at an age when most people are long retired) to outplay artists half his age, Freeman was a musical typhoon, raining down extravagant and voluminous torrents of notes. His solos were profligate, not neat: they exploded with gale force from the stage, looping back upon themselves, whipped by creative winds that only seemed to flag in the last couple of years.”
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“Von was absolutely unique, as a saxophonist and as a person,” Sean Carroll writes for Discover.
“As a musician he managed to intermingle an astonishing variety of styles, from classic ballads to bebop all the way to free jazz, with more than a few things you would never hear anywhere else. Some thought that his playing was an acquired taste, full of skronks and trills and lighting-fast tempo changes. But once you ‘got it,’ you could hear something in Von that you just couldn’t hear anywhere else. This isn’t just formerly-local pride talking; when John Coltrane left Miles Davis’s band in the 1950′s, Miles tried to get Von to replace him. But Von never left Chicago for more than a few days at a time.
“As a person, Von was charming, roguish, stubborn, warm, irascible, and utterly compelling. Sometimes on stage he would get in the mood for talking instead of playing, and honestly it was hard to tell which you preferred. The wisecracks, the wisdom, the Billie Holiday stories, all mixed with the smoke and the cheap beer to create an unforgettable atmosphere.”
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The Tribune’s Essential Von Freeman Recordings.
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NEA Jazz Masters Tribute: “With his individual sound, at once husky and melodic, he makes every song his own.”
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Doin’ It Right Now, 1972.
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Belgium, 1992.
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Berlin, 2002.
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At the New Apartment Lounge in 2009.
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At Taste of Chicago in 2009.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on August 14, 2012