BRATTLEBORO — The Vermont Jazz Center welcomes legendary saxophonist Chico Freeman with an all-star quartet on Saturday, Oct. 15, at 8 p.m. Performing with Freeman will be pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Kenny Davis, and drummer Kush Abadey.
Although Freeman moved to New York from Chicago in the mid-1970s, his strong roots, family ties, and openness to a variety of musical styles continue to link him to the Windy City, according to a news release.
The thread of Freeman's family-jazz connection extends directly to Louis Armstrong, who lived with Chico's grandparents when he first traveled from New Orleans to Chicago in the 1920s. In the release, Chico remembers his father, the iconic Von Freeman, telling him of how Chico “grew up listening to Louis Armstrong play duets with [his] grandfather.”
The passage of music through the generations of Freemans continued with Von's influence on Chico.
“I had seen my father play with Miles Davis and John Coltrane when I was like five years old,” Chico remembers. ”
Freeman has played and recorded with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Eurythmics, The Temptations, and Sting. From South America to Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic, Freeman has performed and recorded with such Latin greats as Tito Puente, Arturo Sandoval, and Puerto Rico's famous El Gran Combo.
Freeman is now an esteemed educator who cut his teeth as a teacher while completing his master's degree in composition and theory. He refuses to lock himself into one style as he carries on the tradition of Von Freeman.