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Jazz Sax Legend Von Freeman dead at 88


artto

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Chicago jazz legend Von Freeman expired (I prefer to use that term [;)] ) Sunday.

A few years back (2005? ~ yikes) boomac from Milwaukee, and GaryMD and Allan Songer flew in and spent some time at my place before going out to Andy's Jazz Club in Chicago to see & hear Von Freeman. We all had a great time.

One of the more memorable moments was Allan's dinner. Boomac, Gary and myself all ordered shrimp. Allan, naturally, had to be different. And his dinner came out first ~ a pork chop. We all sat there and stared at Allan's plate in amazement. Finally I said "I think that's the biggest pork chop I've ever seen!" (long pause) Then Allan says "I know that's the biggest F******* PORK CHOP I've ever seen!"

Needless to say Von Freeman and his band put on an astonishing performance. He was kind of a gruppy old guy but very attentive to everything that was going on. He would lean over the piano for a while, listening quitely and then shout out at the pianist telling him to "PICK IT UP" "take it down" ~ whatever. He even started lecturing a group of folks at one of the tables about how rude it is to be requesting the musicians to play certain songs just for them when the musicians come here to play with a certian thing in mind that night and have a job to do. Of course, he did this with such finesse that nobody realized he was actually reprimanding these folks until he was a couple minutes into it.

Have fun at that great gig in the sky Vonski

Here's a link to some pics I took at the 27th Annual Chicago Jazz Festival in 2005.

http://community.klipsch.com/forums/p/61127/597892.aspx#597892

And others that can write more eloquently about him than I.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-13/entertainment/chi-von-freeman-dies-chicago-jazz-music-20120813_1_von-freeman-chicago-jazz-new-apartment-lounge

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/08/13/jazz-great-von-freeman-dies/

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