by Tyler Schmitz
Von Freeman was this week’s featured player for the Scenes from the Saxophone Section, and he’s one of many jazz musicians to be part of a war effort. That’s right, Freeman was old enough to enlist into World War II, but this was more of an opportunity than anything. You see, he wasn’t the only jazz musician who joined, and this got a bunch of guys together in one place to create something, as he put it, “simply phenomenal.” Not to mention, he was stationed in Hawaii where he got put in with musicians who regularly played for “the greats,” such as Ellington, Basie, Fats Waller, and Ella Fitzgerald to name a few. Freeman used all these influences to round out his skillset to become a player you could probably get to play background to just about anything and do well with it.
“Be My Love” starts us off with a nice, upbeat, and easygoing tune. It’s one of those where the piano actually does a lot of work to keep the mood of this tune feeling as upbeat as it is. Now, everything that comes out of Freeman’s solo is kept simple, and that’s by design. This piece isn’t supposed to be too complicated, because it’s meant to be relaxing. Restraint is a very important skill to learn when soloing, because sometimes you want to just do all the cool licks and runs you know how to do, but to forego that and play something easygoing to fit the tune means you know what you’re doing.
“Song for My Father” is a classic, all-time-great standard from Horace Silver, and is one of the quintessential standards for any jazz musician to know. In fact, this was one of the tunes we played for our last big band concert here at school. With the feel of the tune in mind, it came to my surprise when Von decided he wanted to take this one slow. Frankly, I was taken aback. “Song for My Father” has such a recognizable groove to it, that slowing it down by about 20 or so bpm intrigued me. It’s quite a decision to change this one from an upbeat feel to an easygoing feel, and the tune still works.
Von Freeman had a bit of a knack for hard bop, so this last one “Hard Hittin’” was right up his alley. The tune starts with a blues scale downward before showing its attitude. This one has Freeman playing all these complex, multi-note riffs separated from each other by just the right amount of space. Other than that, it’s your standard upbeat blues bop with a cool enough attitude to where it doesn’t get pulled too far out of its own groove.
