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Bud Freeman

Lawrence "Bud" Freeman was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer, known mainly for playing tenor saxophone and clarinet.  A founding member of Chicago's Austin High School Gang (not that kind of gang, Dorothy!), Freeman was heavily influenced by the King Oliver band featuring Louis Armstrong.  Moving to New York in 1927, he worked as a session musician and band member with Red Nichols, Ben Pollack, and Joe Venuti. Word got around, and the late 1930s found him working with Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman as well as his own Summa Cum Laude Orchestra. After the war, he returned to New York, working with his own groups as well as those of Buck Clayton, Ruby Braff, Vic Dickenson, and Jo Jones. He spent the 1970s travelling with The World's Greatest Jazz Band from his home base in England.  A true Hall-of-Famer, he returned to Chicago and worked in bands into his eighties.