Artist's albums
California Session
1997 · album
Superbud
1994 · album
Something To Remember You By
1987 · album
The Dolphin Has A Message
1980 · album
Gold Rush
2022 · album
The Compleat Bud Freeman
2022 · album
The Atomic Era
2021 · album
Eddie Condon & Bud Freeman
2018 · album
Chicago Jazz
2017 · album
The Best
2017 · album
The Best
2016 · album
Meet Me in San Juan
2014 · album
Newport News (Remastered 2013)
2014 · album
Blue Room
2010 · album
Three's No Crowd
2008 · album
Bud Freeman
2006 · album
Chicago Austin High School Jazz
2006 · album
Bud Freeman with the Alex Welsh Band
2003 · album
Jazzmeeting in Holland
2003 · album
Bud Freeman with Bob Barnard's Jazz Band
2002 · album
Stop, Look and Listen to Bud Freeman
1954 · album
I Could Write a Book
1956 · album
Midnight Session
1960 · album
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Biography
When Bud Freeman first matured, his was the only strong alternative approach on the tenor to the harder-toned style of Coleman Hawkins and he was an inspiration for Lester Young. Freeman, one of the top tenors of the 1930s, was also one of the few saxophonists (along with the slightly later Eddie Miller) to be accepted in the Dixieland world, and his oddly angular but consistently swinging solos were an asset to a countless number of hot sessions. Freeman, excited (as were the other members of the Austin High School Gang in Chicago) by the music of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, took up the C-melody sax in 1923, switching to tenor two years later. It took him time to develop his playing, which was still pretty primitive in 1927 when he made his recording debut with the McKenzie-Condon Chicagoans. Freeman moved to New York later that year and worked with Red Nichols' Five Pennies, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Ben Pollack, Joe Venuti, Gene Kardos, and others. He starred on Eddie Condon's memorable 1933 recording "The Eel." After stints with Joe Haymes and Ray Noble, Freeman was a star with Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra and Clambake Seven (1936-1938) before having a short unhappy stint with Benny Goodman (1938). He led his short-lived but legendary Summe Cum Laude Orchestra (1939-1940) which was actually an octet, spent two years in the military, and then from 1945 on, alternated between being a bandleader and working with Eddie Condon's freewheeling Chicago jazz groups. Freeman traveled the world, made scores of fine recordings, and stuck to the same basic style that he had developed by the mid-'30s (untouched by a brief period spent studying with Lennie Tristano). Bud Freeman was with the World's Greatest Jazz Band (1968-1971), lived in London in the late '70s, and ended up back where he started, in Chicago. He was active into his eighties, and a strong sampling of his recordings are currently available on CD. ~ Scott Yanow, Rovi