Freddie Redd - The Thespian

by Steven Cerra

“Freddie Redd has an endless imagination for melody.” - Mabel Fraser, Jazz author

“Freddie Redd is a real master of melody. He has a lot more to say than many composers. He hears music in longer forms. All his compositions are long." - Don Sickler, Jazz musician

“Unlike most professional jazzmen, Freddie didn't take up an instrument until quite late in his teens. Around 1946, when he was in me Army, Freddie began to pick up me piano on his own. After being discharged, he ... heard Bud Powell [on 52nd Street in NYC]. ‘Bud really got me started. I'd never heard a pianist play quite like that—the remarkably fluent single lines and the pretty chords. In time, Thelonious Monk got to me too. Actually, however, I've been influenced by many things I've heard on a lot of instruments. What I do is try to piece together what stimulates me into my own way of feeling things musically.’" - Nat Hentoff

In his insert notes to Shades of Redd [Blue Note 21738], Nat Hentoff further explains that “... since his emergence as composer of the score for Jack Gelber's harrowingly exact play, The Connection (Blue Note 4027), Freddie Redd has finally been gaining some of the recognition that has eluded him for much of his playing career. Freddie also plays the taciturn pianist in the play with convincing effect.

Although he hopes to work again in the theatre, Freddie remains essentially a jazz player-writer, and this album underlines his growth as a composer of vigorously expressive jazz originals. … Freddie's long association with the play had led to his being dubbed "The Thespian" by Joe Termini, the owner of The Jazz Gallery and The Five Spot in New York, and Freddie chose the nickname for the title of the opening tune.”

Hence, too, the title of this piece.

Read more: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com.br/2015/08/freddie-redd-thespian.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+JazzProfiles+(Jazz+Profiles)