Von Freeman

Though overshadowed in public recognition by his tenor saxophonist son Chico Freeman, Von Freeman matched or surpassed him in jazz artistry. He never embraced free jazz outright yet displayed avant-garde hallmarks such as a coarsely textured, vocal-like timbre, an elastic and occasionally loose rhythmic feel, and an imaginative approach to harmony. Born to a policeman enamored of ragtime and a housewife who played guitar, he took up music near age two on the household piano. Music filled his childhood; his maternal grandfather and an uncle both played guitar, while brothers George and Bruz pursued jazz careers on guitar and drums. At seven he fashioned a makeshift saxophone by detaching the horn from the family Victrola and drilling holes into it, soon afterward taking up clarinet and then C-melody saxophone. Louis Armstrong ranked among his earliest inspirations.

He studied at Chicago’s DuSable High School under band director Captain Walter Dyett and absorbed harmony lessons from chorus director Mrs. Bryant Jones. After roughly a year with Horace Henderson’s Orchestra from 1940 to 1941, he performed in a Navy band during military service from 1941 to 1945. He next joined the house band at Chicago’s Pershing Ballroom from 1946 to 1950 and spent part of that period with Sun Ra from 1948 to 1949. While at the Pershing he accompanied numerous leading jazz figures who visited the city, among them Charlie Parker. His reputation grew steadily among local musicians, and he is said to have shaped the thinking of several Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians members. Because he rarely ventured beyond Chicago and entered the studio only sporadically, wider fame eluded him.

A mid-1960s session for Cadet paired him with Milt Trenier, and in 1972 Rahsaan Roland Kirk produced a date for Atlantic. As Chico’s profile rose in the late 1970s, Von began reaching a larger listenership. In 1982 the two Freemans appeared together on the Columbia album Fathers & Sons alongside pianist Ellis Marsalis and his sons Wynton and Branford. During the 1990s he recorded for Steeplechase and Southport. Widely regarded as one of the tenor saxophone’s most distinctive voices, he stayed creatively active into the close of the century. He succumbed to heart failure in 2012.