Freddie Redd

Bborn May 29, 1928, Harlem, New York City
Died March 17, 2021, Manhattan
An American hard bop pianist and composer. Turned professional in 1949. The Jack Gelber stage play about heroin addicts waiting for a fix, "The Connection", for which Redd wrote the music, was first performed off-Broadway by the Living Theatre in July 1959, a film version, also featuring Redd, followed in 1961. In 1963, he briefly settled on the West Coast, and later in the decade, Redd lived in Europe. He returned to the US in 1974 and eventually lived once more in New York from 2013.