Russ Freeman – Safe at Home | Zur Nacht noch ein Nachtrag zu Russ Freeman auf Pacific Jazz – eine CD, die vor 20 Jahren bei Just a Memory/Justin Time herausgekommen ist, bei Discogs nicht gelistet ist, und Freeman im Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver präsentiert. Wer ihn an Bass und Drums begleitet, ist unbekannt, aber die beiden sind ziemlich gut und Freeman ist spitze. Larry Kart hat drüben auf Org einiges dazu geschrieben und auch den schwer greifbaren Stil von Freeman zu beschreiben versucht:
Larry Kart
The best Freeman on record I know, a well-recorded concert from Vancouver in 1959, with a simpatico but unidentified bassist and drummer. Not for the first time, I find Freeman’s style hard to describe. Two-handed, even two-fisted, and rather bluesy at times, he might seem to have been inspired by Horace Silver (as the somewhat similar East Coast pianist/onetime Getz sideman John Williams certainly was), but this was Freeman’s style from early on, when Horace was not well known. A link to Hampton Hawes is possible, but I think that Freeman was basically his own man. Nor, despite his presence on the West Coast, was he ever into the neo-Basie groove that so many pianist of that locale and era favored. Also — and this album is a fine example — Freeman was a melodist with both hands to an uncommon degree; seldom if ever do I hear that familiar right-hand single-line melody/left-hand chordal comping texture from him; rather, melodic activity not only tends to be evenly distributed between hands but also is just as likely to be both chordal and single-line in a typically dense interactive manner. That characteristic density, if I had to pick one thing, is what makes Freeman distinctive. That he was a backer of Dick Twardzik and was responsible for Twardzik’s Pacific Jazz trio date may be no accident, for Twardzik had some similar traits, though Freeman was not as overtly „far out“ as Twardzik was. Another echo might be to Kenny Drew — not of influence again but affinity, in that both men, much as they obviously admired Bud Powell, also sound as though they were fond of boogie woogie pianism in their formative years. In any case, this is one fine record.
Karts Antwort auf Jim Sangreys Einwurf, ob die Linke ev. von Al Haig komme, ist nochmal interessant:
Larry Kart
But Haig didn’t have any of that rumbling (perhaps updated boogie-woogie in origin, again almost literally two-fisted) attack that typifies Freeman’s playing, nor the at times aggressive bluesiness/funkiness, nor IIRC does Haig set up and/or employ, as Freeman does, a sense of ongoing, edgy byplay and bounce between right and left hand activity. (Again, IIRC, with Haig the relationship between right and left hand is one of more or less seamless flow, with what figures originate where not being emphasized, even being somewhat concealed in the service of that sense of flow, while with Freeman one always knows what hand is generating what — his is a style where he wants us to know and feel that.) Further, in case I didn’t mention it above, especially on this album I’m struck by how much — in the midst of all that density and two-handed drive — virtually everything Freeman plays is fundamentally in-the-moment melodic, virtually no „gestural“ figures, so to speak. (I should add, however, that Freeman’s melodicism, attractive though it is, is notable more for its consistent flow/drive, not as with Haig or Duke Jordan, for producing shapes of jaw-dropping beauty/resolution. Again, there is, as with other aspects of Freeman’s approach, something that seems a tad paradoxical here; that is, if one has that consistent a melodic gift, why does it seldom if ever reach, or reach for, what might be called a lyrical climax? Could it be a kind of insistence on „masculine“ drive and forcefulness on Freeman’s part, that almost-omnipresent rumble factor?) Finally, Freeman was a fine composer — his ballad „The Wind, “ for one, but the title track from this album is another handsome ballad with a strong spine, and then there’s his memorable „groove“ tune „Fan Tan“ and others.
https://www.organissimo.org/forum/topic/79459-russ-freemans-safe-at-home/
Ich weiss nicht mehr, wann und wo ich die CD gekauft habe, nur dass es ein Blindkauf war (den kleinen Faden auf Org hab ich erst später entdeckt) – ich bin allerdings völlig einverstanden, dass das ein super Album bzw. Konzertmitschnitt ist (und Freemans beste Aufnahme, was nicht schwer ist, es gibt ja kaum welche unter eigenem Namen).
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #170: Aktuelles von Jazzmusikerinnen – 19.02.2026, 20:00; #171 – 10.03.2026, 22:00; #172 – 14.04.2026, 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba