Fred Anderson (musician)

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see Fred Anderson for others with this name.

Fred Anderson
Fred Anderson in 2005; Photo by Seth Tisue
Fred Anderson in 2005; Photo by Seth Tisue
Background information
Birth name Fred Anderson
Born March 22, 1929 (1929-03-22) (age 79)
Origin Flag of the United States Monroe, Louisiana
Genre(s) Free jazz
Avant-garde jazz
Modern Creative
Instrument(s) Saxophone

Fred Anderson (b. Monroe, Louisiana, March 22, 1929) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who resides in Chicago, Illinois.

With his distinctive forward-bent playing posture, Anderson is a longtime fixture on the Chicago jazz scene. Anderson's playing is rooted in the swing music and hard bop of his youth, but also incorporated innovations from free jazz, making him, as critics Ron Wynn and Joslyn Layne[1] write, "a seminal figure among Chicago musicians in the '60s." His son, Eugene Anderson, is a noted drummer.

[edit] Biography

Anderson grew up in the Southern U.S. and learned to play the saxophone in his youth. Anderson moved his family to Evanston, Illinois in the 1940's. Anderson was one of the founders of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and is still an important member of the musical collective. His partner for many years was the Chicago underground jazz legend, trumpeter Billy Brimfield.

Anderson appeared on several notable avant garde albums in the '60s, notably the seminal Delmark recordings of saxophonist Joseph Jarman, As If It Were The Seasons (1968), and Song For (1966), which includes Anderson's composition "Little Fox Run."

In 1983, Fred Anderson took over ownership of the Velvet Lounge in Chicago, which quickly became a center for the city's jazz and experimental music scenes. The club expanded and relocated in the summer of 2006.

Though he remained an active performer, Anderson recorded rarely for about a decade beginning in the mid-'80s. By the 1990s, however, he resumed a more active recording schedule, both as a solo artist, and in collaboration with younger performers, notably saxophonist Ken Vandermark and drummer Hamid Drake.

[edit] References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
  1. ^ Ron Wynn & Joslyn Layne, "Fred Anderson".
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