Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Freddie Redd was born on May 29, 1928 and grew up in New York City and  after losing his father when he was a one year old, he was raised by his mother, who moved around Harlem, Brooklyn and other neighborhoods. An autodidact, he began playing the piano at a young age and took to studying jazz seriously upon hearing Charlie Parker during his military service in Korea.

Upon discharge from the Army in 1949 he worked with drummer Johnny Mills, and then in New York played with Tiny Grimes, Cootie Williams, Oscar Pettiford and the Jive Bombers. In 1954 he was playing with Art Blakey, followed with a tour of Sweden in 1956 with Ernestine Anderson and Rolf Ericson. Freddie’s greatest success came in the late 1950s when he was invited to compose the music and perform as actor and musician in both The Living Theatre’s New York stage production of The Connection, which was also used in the subsequent 1961 film. Redd led a Blue Note album featuring his music for the play. which featured Jackie McLean on alto sax. However, his success in the theater production did not advance his career in the United States, and shortly afterwards he moved to Europe living in Denmark and France.

Returning to the West Coast in 1974 he became a regular on the San Francisco scene and recorded intermittently up until 1990. His creative lines, particular voicings and innovative compositions have led him to work with Jackie McLean, Tina Brooks, Paul Chambers, Howard McGhee, Milt Hinton, Lou Donaldson, Benny Bailey, Charles Mingus, Louis Hayes, Al McKibbon, Billy Higgins, Osie Johnson, Gene Ammons, Tommy Potter, Joe Chambers and many more. He contributed organ to James Taylor’s original 1968 recording of Carolina In My Mind.

Over the course of his career hard-bop pianist and composer Freddie Redd, who passed away  in New York City on March 17, 2021, aged 92, recorded fourteen albums as leader and was one of the last of the pioneers of the hard-bop golden age.

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