Highly skilled in a variety of jazz styles, tenor saxophonist Chico Freeman has made a career of celebrating jazz’s history and teaming with some of its brightest stars. Born Earl Lavon Freeman Jr. in Chicago on July 17, 1949, Freeman is the son of avant-garde jazz musician Von Freeman. The younger Freeman played the trumpet for most of his upbringing, but switched to tenor sax during his education at Northwestern University.

Freeman’s career led him to collaborate with several significant figures, including Sam Rivers, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and Dizzy Gillespie. Like his father, he also performed alongside Sun Ra. Freeman began releasing albums as a bandleader in 1976 with Morning Prayer, and continued to release a series of strong albums through the early ‘80s on India Navigation and Contemporary Records.

Freeman became involved with the neotraditonalist jazz movement in the early ‘80s, highlighted by his participation in the storied Young Lions concert at Lincoln Center. The collaboration intended to reinvigorate jazz traditions while eschewing recent developments in free and fusion jazz. The Young Lions featured what would become the next generation of leading jazz talent, headlined by Wynton Marsalis, Kevin Eubanks, Paquito D’Rivera, and a pre-”Don’t Worry, Be Happy” Bobby McFerrin, and the Lincoln Center concert was released as a 2-LP set.

In addition to his own jazz recordings, Freeman also worked with artists outside his immediate sphere, including Chaka Khan and Latin music icons Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. He also devoted time to academia, both as an instructor at the AACM Music School and by continuing his own education, earning his masters degree in composition and theory from Governors State University.

Chico Freeman

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