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Bud Freeman

Lawrence "Bud" Freeman was known mainly for playing the tenor saxophone, but also able at the clarinet. His smooth and full tenor sax style with a heavy robust swing was the only strong alternative to Coleman Hawkins' harder toned approach, until the arrival of Lester Young whom Freeman had allegedly influenced [1] (although Young himself denied this, citing Frank Trumbauer as his main influence). One of the original members of the Austin High School Gang which began in 1922, Freeman played the C-melody saxophone alongside his other band members such as Jimmy McPartland and Frank Teschemacher before switching to tenor saxophone two years later. Influenced by artists like the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Louis Armstrong from the South, they would begin to formulate their own style, becoming part of the emerging Chicago Style of jazz. In 1927, he moved to New York, where he worked as a session musician and band member with Red Nichols, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Ben Pollack, Joe Venuti, among others. One of his most notable performances was a solo on Eddie Condon's 1933 recording, The Eel, which then became Freeman's nickname (for his long snake-like improvisations). Freeman played with Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra (1936-1938) as well as for a short time Benny Goodman's band in 1938 before forming his own band, the Summa Cum Laude Orchestra (1939-1940). Freeman joined the US Army during World War II, and headed a US Army band in the Aleutian Islands. Following the war, Freeman returned to New York and led his own groups, yet still kept a close tie to the freewheeling bands of Eddie Condon as well as working in 'mainstream' groups with the likes of Buck Clayton, Ruby Braff, Vic Dickenson and Jo Jones. He wrote (along with Leon Pober) the ballad "Zen Is When", recorded by The Dave Brubeck Quartet on Jazz Impressions of Japan (1964). He was a member of the World's Greatest Jazz Band between 1969 and 1970, and on occasionally there after. In 1974, he would move to England where he made numerous recordings and performances there and in Europe. Returning to Chicago in 1980, he continued to work into his eighties. He also released two memoirs You Don't Look Like a Musician (1974) and If You Know of a Better Life, Please Tell Me (1976), and wrote an autobiography with Robert Wolf, Crazeology (1989).


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184
Album Review

Bud Freeman: All-Star Swing Sessions

Read "All-Star Swing Sessions" reviewed by Florence Wetzel


In the ‘20s, Chicago was one of jazz’s key geographic streams, and at the heart of the city’s music was the famed Austin High School gang, a group of young men who loved the new music so much they decided to play it. Amongst this group—which included Frank Teschemacher, Eddie Condon, Jimmy McPartland, and sometimes Benny Goodman—was tenor saxophonist Bud Freeman. Born 1906 in Chicago and died 1991 in the same city, Freeman spanned the century, and he spent almost ...

103
Album Review

Bud Freeman: All-Star Swing Sessions

Read "All-Star Swing Sessions" reviewed by Derek Taylor


Swing is one of the most venerated styles of jazz. The capital “s" differentiates it from the more abstract attribute attainable through virtually any vernacular. Age and so-called “innovation" have leavened some of music's sweep. But reissues are instructive windows into why it will likely never die.

Just as it’s easy to forget Swing’s earlier primacy, so to do its pioneering practitioners often fall by the wayside of public memory. Saxophonist Bud Freeman was one of the greats, ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

All-Star Swing...

Fantasy Jazz
2004

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All-Star Swing...

Prestige Records
2003

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Two Beautiful

Stretch Records
1983

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I Grandi Del Jazz

Stretch Records
1982

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Jazzmeeting In Holland

Stretch Records
1981

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