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Jeff Friedman is originally from Miami Beach, Florida. He moved to Boston in 1975 to attend the Berklee College of Music, where he studied composition and arranging with Herb Pomeroy, Phil Wilson, Michael Gibbs, Ken Pullig, John Bavicchi, and Thomas Oboe Lee, and guitar with Larry Senibaldi and Jim Kelly.
In 1979 he received a Bachelor of Music in Composition from Berklee College of Music, where he's currently a Professor of Jazz Composition. In his twenty plus years as a teacher at Berklee, Jeff has worked with many notable alums, including Branford Marsalis, Greg Osby, Gene Jackson, Mark Ledford, Jeff "Tain" Watts, Wallace Roney, Frank Lacy, and Melissa Etheridge, among others. Jeff has also taught at the New England Conservatory, served as a guest artist the Jazz orchestras at Harvard and University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and conducted master classes in Jazz Composition at Brown University.
Jeff has performed as a guitarist with many bands, including Sons of Sappho, Ramcat, Bentmen, the Eric Mingus Trio, Buck Moon, Howard Tate, and his own jazz, blues, and rock bands. Special mention should be made of Sons of Sappho, a progressive "rock" band formed in the early eighties, which included vocalist Scott Getchell (currently of Lars Vegas), and Xtrawatt/ECM recording artist Steve Weisberg. Carla Bley produced several recordings for Sons of Sappho in 1985, which eventually led to several significant projects as Carla’s orchestrater, copyist, and editor.
Jeff also performed frequently with Eric Mingus, who appears on Slo & Lo. Beside performing his guitar arrangements on Eric’s first solo recording, Um...Er...Uh..., Jeff has performed live with Eric’s trio at various top NYC venues, such as the Knitting Factory, and throughout Italy. A highlight of the ‘00 Italian tour was the trio’s performance on RAI (the Italian counterpart to NPR), to a national audience of seven million listeners.
As a composer, arranger, and/or orchestrater, Jeff’s professional associations have included Carla Bley, Michael Mantler, Steve Swallow, Karl Berger, Jack Bruce, Joe Lavano, Herb Pomeroy, Phil Wilson, Joe Henderson, Clark Terry, Jimmy Knepper, Gerry Mulligan, Alvin Batiste, Bobby Shew, J.J. Johnson, Steve Lacy, Randy Weston and Max Roach, among others.
Of particular note is Jeff's 1997 re-orchestration of the Carla Bley/Paul Haines opera Escalator Over The Hill. EOTH first appeared on record in 1972, but had never been performed live. In addition to preparing the music for live presentation, Jeff was invited to participate as Carla’s assistant for the work’s premiere at the 1997 MusikTriennale Festival, in Koln, Germany. Among the performing participants were poet/librettist Paul Haines, Phil Minton, Syd Straw, David Moss, Linda Sharrock, Lew Soloff, Gary Valente, Wolfgang Pushnig, Andy Sheppard, Julian Arguelles, Karen Mantler, Steve Swallow and Brad Shepek. EOTH also toured Europe, with a similar cast, in the summer of 1998.
Jeff has also written extensively for the college jazz ensembles of Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Brandies, Tufts, University of Mass, Amherst, and Brown. Notably, Jeff’s arrangements and compositions, including special commissions, have been featured for over 20 years in many of Harvard’s annual visiting artist residencies.
Recordings include: The New world Jazz Composers Octet, No Place To Hide (Big and Phat Jazz Productions, BPJ 1019, 2007); Jeff Friedman, Slo & Lo, (Accurate Records, AC-5047, 2003); Eric Mingus, Um...Er...Ah..., (Some Records, 2000); Brown University Jazz Band, (BruNote Records, 1998); Bentmen - Patient Zero (Sound Museum Records, 1995), Magicroom (Sound Museum Records, 1992), Use Of The Headlock Dummy (Sound Museum, 1989), Gross Santa’s Yuletide Favorites (Sound Museum, 1990), Boston Does The Beatles, (Beat Records, 1988); Carla Bley, Orchestra Jazz Siciliana Play The Music Of Carla Bley (XtraWATT4/ECM, Polygram, 1988); Michael Manter, Many Have No Speech (WATT19/ECM, Polygram, 1988); Hal Wilner, Lost In The Stars (A&M records, 1988); Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet , The Walkman (1987); Karl Berger -The Bird, WDR Radio Orchestra, Koln, Germany (1987); Sly & Robbie - Rhythm Killers (Polygram, 1987).
(SloAndLo@jeffsmusik.com)
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