The great guitarist Kenny Burrell wrote, “Freddie Bryant is a brilliant young guitarist and composer.” He is a versatile musician skilled both in jazz and classical music receiving his BA from Amherst College ’87, Master’s degree in classical guitar from the Yale School of Music and currently teaches at Williams College in Massachusetts in the Africana and Music departments and at the Prins Claus Conservatory in Groningen, Holland.
Freddie is currently in demand in the New York jazz scene where he works with Ben Riley’s Monk Legacy Septet (new CD “Memories of T” on Concord Records), the Mingus Orchestra and the pianist/singer Eliane Elias. He is also on the first call list of many singers and Brazilian musicians because of his sensitive accompanying and his knowledge of Brazilian guitar. His most recent CD is with the group Trio del Sol (Twinz Records). He has four others as a leader: Brazilian Rosewood, Boogaloo Brasileiro, Live at Smoke (Fresh Sound Records) and Take Your Dance into Battle (Jazz City Spirit). Freddie has also had the honor of touring with three legends of the music world: African singer, Salif Keita, the virtuoso klezmer clarinetist, Maestro Giora Feidman and the jazz trumpet great, Tom Harrell (as a member of his quintet, 1999-2001). He has recorded and/or played with Tom Harrell, D.D. Jackson, Steve Wilson, Kevin Hays, Rosanna Vitro, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sheila Jordan, Randy Brecker, David Sanchez, and many others.
Over the years he has toured in 35 countries and has had the opportunity of collaborating with musicians from a wide variety of backgrounds including the Indian sitarist, Shubhendra Rao, the Kenyan singers, Achien’g Abura, Suzanna Owiyo, the Taarab master oud player Zein L’abdin and traditional groups in Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. In 2006 he performed in Cuba as a solo artist and spent a week of musical exchange with Cuban musicians including the trumpet player, “El Greco” formerly of Irakere. He has toured as a cultural ambassador for The U.S. Department of State four times and recently performed at the Kennedy Center with the Billy Taylor Trio, broadcast on the National Public Radio Show, “Live at the Kennedy Center.” Education has always been a large part of his musical life. He has taught all ages from young children to university students and has lectured about jazz to audiences around the world. In 2004 he was chosen to be a Copeland Fellow at Amherst College.
WWW.FREDDIEBRYANT.COM
