Fred Anderson fondly remembered by Chicago’s jazz community

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

‘The lone prophet of the prairie” — that’s what a noted music critic called Fred Anderson more than three decades ago. Back then, Anderson certainly had earned the name. For years, he studied tenor saxophone and led bands in obscure Chicago clubs. Other musicians booed him for playing too far out. He was in his 40s when he led his first recordings, and few people outside of Chicago realized he was a major jazz artist until he reached Social Security age.

When he died last June, Anderson was far from a lone prophet. By then, he was an international performer who ran Chicago’s famous jazz club, the Velvet Lounge. More than that, he was a quiet, generous man who was a central figure, a catalyst in the growth of Chicago’s jazz scene.

This week, a group of his friends, called the Velvet Birdhouse Coalition, will present the much-anticipated Fred Anderson memorial celebrations. First, on Sunday afternoon, March 20, a parade of musicians who had played music with him over the years will offer a concert at the DuSable Museum of African American History. Then on March 22, Anderson’s birthday, three more major figures in today’s free jazz — drummer Hamid Drake, bassist Henry Grimes and saxophonist Edward “Kidd” Jordan — will headline a show at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase.

Why celebrate Fred Anderson? Jazz is an art that people create together, and Anderson nurtured a community of musicians and music lovers. He liked to encourage young players and to offer older ones a place to perform. Of course, there’s little money to be made in presenting Chicago jazz.

“Everybody who worked at the Velvet Lounge were really volunteers,” Lauren Deutsch, of the Jazz Institute of Chicago, points out. “They did it as a labor of love.”

Their nightly incomes depended on how many paying customers showed up, and for every night when the club was packed, there were nights when few people came.

“Fred had a way of making everybody who came to the Velvet Lounge feel welcome,” says Drake, the jazz artist who knew Anderson best.

Lessons learned

Anderson was born in Monroe, La., in 1929; Drake was born there in 1955. When Drake was young, he moved with his family to Evanston. There they lived first with the Anderson family, then across the street.

“I knew Fred as long as I can remember,” Drake says. “Especially after my father died, when I was 14, he became like a second father to me. When he would come home from work every day and on weekends, he would always go to the family room in the basement and practice. Even at that early age, I could feel he loved what he was doing.”

For years, Anderson worked at day jobs — laying carpets, waiting tables, tending bar — to support his family. He also studied music extensively and even crafted his own collection of exercises, some of which are in his book Exercises for the Creative Musician. Saxophone great Charlie Parker was his first great inspiration; later, the long, freely moving melodies he improvised went far beyond Parker’s nervous bebop, partly influenced by Ornette Coleman. Other musicians, including some who became jazz stars, trekked to Evanston to practice with Anderson.

“Fred was a model of the big Chicago tenor sound. He brought it into the current jazz era. He had great fluency and a strictly melodic imagination,” Jordan says.

By the 1960s, Anderson’s far-sighted insights were shared by a rising generation of musical explorers. In 1965, he played in the first concert ever offered by the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Chicago’s historic free-jazz cooperative. Meanwhile, young Drake became a skillful drummer. In 1973, when he graduated from high school, he was hired to play in a historic Anderson combo that included trumpeter Bill Brimfield, multi-saxophonist Douglas Ewart and young trombonist George Lewis.

“I learned so many things from him because we had so many daily life experiences together,” Drake says. “I learned the importance of consistency and discipline and perseverance. You don’t have to show off your knowledge, but your knowledge can be seen through the way you live.”

Prolific later years

In the 1970s, Anderson’s band played weekly at the Foundation Church in Old Town, then at his own short-lived, no-alcohol, no-food concert room, The Birdhouse on Lincoln Avenue. He became an international figure with his first European gigs in 1977, and led his first albums in Europe. He took over the Velvet Lounge, an obscure little neighborhood bar near McCormick Place, in 1981. There he introduced live jazz, first every two weeks and eventually, after the Velvet became famous, five nights a week.

Most of Anderson’s touring and recording happened since 1990. Eventually, he led or co-led 30 albums, including at least 15 with Drake. Until Anderson died, says the drummer, “We were planning to do another record last August.”

In 2006-2007, when a wrecking ball took down the original Velvet Lounge, jazz lovers contributed money, Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase held weekly fund-raising shows for Anderson and he was able to reopen the Velvet on nearby Cermak Road. The new room was also small, so again some shows drew overflow crowds. After Anderson’s death, his granddaughters Rasminee Harris and Jasmine Sebaggala were able to keep the Velvet Lounge open and the music swinging until last December.

The community that grew up around Anderson is going on. The Velvet Birdhouse Coalition was formed by some of them, including Harris, Sebaggala and people from the AACM, Asian Improv Artists and the Jazz Institute of Chicago.

“We’re working together to preserve Fred’s legacy,” Deutsch says.

John Litweiler is a Chicago free-lance critic and author.