Mike Freeman (jazz musician)

Biography

Freeman has performed in North America, Europe, the Azores, Caribbean, and South America. In 1985 he did an extensive tour of Portugal, sponsored by the American Embassy and the Fulbright Foundation. The tour was arranged by Rui Martins, director of the Hot Club of Portugal, and USIA Cultural Affairs Officer Wally Keiderling. He performed in areas of the country rarely visited by American musicians and not previously visited by a vibraphone player. In Guarda, Portugal, he received the medal of the city.

His six recordings of original music gained national and international attention, and extensive radio airplay, charting on jazz, contemporary jazz, and world music radio as well as airing on syndicated radio programs (WOR radio network, Jazz after Hours, David Sanborn, Music Choice, United Airlines). Recordings of his have been both Grammy and Latin Grammy entries.

Mike is widely known for performing and recording with several acclaimed Latin groups including percussionist Ray Mantilla from 2002 to the present. ”Good Vibrations" on Savant Records was Jazzweek’s top Latinjazz recording on radio in 2006. He performed and recorded with Lucho Cueto’s all-star group Black Sugar and for over ten years with Jose Mangual Jr’s Son Boricua featuring Jimmy Sabater (one of the architects of Boogaloo). He also performed with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra (directed by Oscar Hernandez) at Madison Square Garden and with Willie Villegas's Joe Cuba Sextet both with legendary sonero Cheo Feliciano.

In addition to producing recordings, he produced at Manhattan Plaza, “Band Together” a Hurricane Katrina Benefit Concert for Tipitinas Foundation benefiting New Orleans–area musicians and the Humane Society, 2005 and performed for Flood Relief in Des Moines, Iowa, 1993. He wrote a series, spanning more than a decade, of commissioned compositions and arrangements for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Percussion Scholarship Program and in 2014 was commissioned by drummer/educator Ed Uribe to write arrangements for a new percussion curriculum for the country of China that were performed by members of the Shanghai Symphony at Shanghai Symphony Hall.

Early Years

Mike started learning drums at age five and began playing professionally at age thirteen. At twelve, he began playing the vibraphone, and by fifteen, he was a percussionist for the Omaha Symphony under conductor Thomas Briccetti. During his last year of high school, he began traveling to Chicago to study with renowned percussionist and veteran studio musician Bobby Christian. He graduated DePaul University with a Bachelor of Music composition, in 1981. In New York, where he’s lived and worked since, he studied with composer/arranger Hale Rood, (who wrote for Louie Bellson).

As leader

As featured side musician

As session musician