Coming off last year’s acclaimed Legacy Project, a Freeman family celebration featuring an extended suite composed by Chico and performed by a 19-piece orchestra, tonight’s presentation will feature a smaller but no less special cast of musicians who have played with one or more of the Freemans in various settings:

This marks a reunion for pianist Adegoke Steve Colson, who has a storied history with Freeman as they co-founded the group “Life and Death Situation” while they attended Northwestern University together and joined the AACM after working extensively with Fred Anderson, drummer Ronnie Burrage worked with Freeman together with McCoy Tyner and toured Europe in many of Freemans groups as well as groups led by Burrage, bassist Mark Helias, played with Freeman throughout the 1980’s during that fertile creative time, and representing the younger generation, vibraphonist Thaddeus Tukes who has worked with Freeman in Chicago at the Jazz Showcase and on the Chicago Jazz Festival.

The band will perform new works by Freeman, that he has played and/or recorded recently, as well as works by some of his peers. Not to be lost in all of this is the greatness of Chico as a tenor saxophonist, composer and bandleader. His time abroad may have changed his profile in the states but as his return visits have demonstrated, the apple does not fall far from the tree – whatever branch you have in mind.