JazzGram, March-April, 2022

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PROMOTING AND NURTURING JAZZ IN CHICAGO MARCH/APRIL 2022

VON, GEORGE, BRUZ…AND CHICO: THE FREEMANS’ LIVES IN MUSIC TO BE HONORED BY “THE LEGACY PROJECT”

Chico Freeman with his father Von Freeman.

By Corey Hall

CHICO FREEMAN TO PRESENT SUITE THAT HONORS HIS ROOTS AND RELATIVES

While her heartbeat pulsed in his ears, the infant listened as grandma sang, swaying in time with the rocking chair. As his chin merged into her chest, and as her hands caressed him, a base/bass and melody for his future were being built.

Seventy-plus years later, these memories remain ripe for saxophonist Chico Freeman.

“That’s where I got my sense of rhythm,” he said, during a recent conversation. “I can still feel her hands on my back… just that beat.”

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Grandma’s hands, her guitar playing and singing in her church’s gospel choir, comprise the genesis of “The Legacy Project,” Freeman’s original suite that honors his family’s lives, livelihoods, and liveliness in music. This suite embraces his father, Von, who died in 2012, and his uncles, Bruz, who died in 2006, and George, also referred to as “George Da Bomb,” who is now 94 years here. This work, to be performed by the Chico Freeman Orchestra, will be presented on June 23rd at the University of Chicago’s Logan Center.

“It will follow from the time early on when I was living with my dad (at 69th and Calumet) and watching him and his brothers rehearse at the house,” Freeman said, adding that his grandfather, a piano player and police officer, will also be acknowledged. “My father grew up listening to his father and Louis Armstrong playing duets.”

Freeman also reminisced about when, at age five, he saw his father perform in public for the first time. The venue? The Regal Theater on 47th Street. The musician who called him for the hit? Miles Davis. Miles’ sound would eventually implant itself so deeply into Freeman, leading him to choose the trumpet as his voice when studying music at Northwestern University in the 1960s. “I was sounding like Miles,” he admitted, “but my father always told me, ‘You’re not going to get anywhere sounding like somebody else.’”

One day in 1969, as students were cuttin’ out for Spring break, Freeman noticed a tenor saxophone alone in a classroom. He received permission from his professor, a dude named Tex, to take it home. There, every day for up to 12 hours, he exclusively explored the saxophone.

When classes resumed, Freeman asked Tex if he could play saxophone in the school’s large ensemble. Now he already had a chair in the ensemble as a trumpeter, but the push to play saxophone instead moved him to make the move.

“How long have you been playing the saxophone?” his professor asked. The response, “Two weeks,” led T. to deny his request.

“You have the right to not allow me to play,” Freeman responded, “but you have to give me the opportunity to try.” Tex relented; Freeman auditioned, and he earned his wish.

Armed with his new axe, Freeman would join a saxophone quartet at school and later advance his studies at his father’s weekly jam sessions on the South side. There, in classrooms where spirits flowed from bottles, reeds, strings,

and metal, he would absorb late-night lessons from Jug, Dex, Clifford Jordan, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and many other messengers who had performed that night at the Jazz Showcase.

“In our house, I saw people like Ahmad Jamal, Andrew Hill, and Leroy Vinnegar, because they would come and rehearse with my dad. And Richard Davis once lived across the street from us,” Freeman recalled. “I met Abbey Lincoln when I was a little boy, because she would come over and visit her family who lived down the street.”

“The Legacy Project,” Freeman stated, will document what he has experienced through life, learning from family by blood and family by brotherhood.

“It’s going to be like a rainbow, an arc; it’s going to go through my dad’s history and my uncles’ history,” said Freeman, who recorded albums with his father and Uncle George on separate occasions. “You will hear some music touch on those eras, and it will go up to where I started playing music and my career on the other side of the arc. At the end, I will be giving a nod to the young people trying to continue (this music.)”

The Chico Freeman Orchestra, as assembled by guitarist Mike Allemana, will feature multiple woodwinds, brass, a rhythm section, Dee Alexander’s vocals, Da Bomb’s guitar, and Reto Weber, from Switzerland, playing the hang. “It’s pronounced hong; it’s Swiss/German for hand,” Freeman explained. “The sound palette (of the orchestra) will be much less like a big band and more in the direction of a Gil Evans/Duke Ellington orchestra with my own ideas.”

One week before the Logan Center performance, open rehearsals and master classes for young musicians taught by Freeman will be held at Saint Moses the Black Parish (formerly Saint Columbanus) and Hamilton Park. These venues were secured by vocalist Margaret Murphy-Webb, who co-leads the South Side Jazz Coalition.

Murphy-Webb hopes that “The Legacy Project” rejuvenates awareness about Von Freeman, because, “Once a person dies, people tend to forget what impact that person made on certain genres or certain acts in the city. And there are lots of young musicians who don’t know who Von Freeman is…

“So let’s keep Von’s name alive,” Murphy-Webb continued, “and let’s realize we elders are out here on the South side doing what we’re doing because of his influence.”