George Freeman solos with Bird ca. 1950

[44lombard]

I bought the Savoy Records set of live Bird broadcasts (mostly Royal Roost airchecks) back when it came out 20 years ago, and eventually I made my way to the handful of tracks on Disc 4 that were taken from a gig at Chicago's Pershing Hotel in 1950.

Guitarist George Freeman (brother of Von, uncle of Chico) is in the band, and he takes a solo on "Keen and Peachy" that reminds me of "Power Tools"-era Bill Frisell. Lots of little clumps of notes separated by thoughtful pauses. (I guess Paul Bley kind of does this too.) For 1950, it strikes me as a bit far out, but then again, Chicago at this time did have Sun Ra and lots of blues guys who were playing raw stuff. He starts his solo around 2:47, and it's definitely rooted in the rhythms of bop, but by 4:17 he's getting pretty abstract, and he wraps it around 5:05. You can hear the crowd having a good time reacting to his stuff. I'm not sure he was taking it 100% seriously, but it wasn't a complete lark.

[neatomic]

great stuff..too bad the recording is poor..you cant hear the group interaction..except for the drummer droppin those bombs!! hah

quite a solo..roots of pete cosey!! & he (cosey) replaced frisell in power tools!

cheers

ps- george freeman is still with us @ 92!

[rictroll]

Wow. What a blast.

Thank you for posting this.

[lawson-stone]

Wow. That's way past anything one would call traditional bebop! He also seems to "ride" the natural distortion of the amp, almost like he has a compressor or something. Really plays the amp as well as the guitar.