Jazz pianist, composer Freddie Redd dies at 92

Freddie Redd, a pianist and composer who released a pair of well-received albums for Blue Note Records in the early 1960s, then spent more than half a century bouncing through different cities as an ambassador of jazz’s golden age, died March 17 at a care facility in Manhattan. He was 92.

His grandson Leslie Clarke said he had died in his sleep but did not give a cause.

Redd is best known for writing the music for “The Connection” (1959), an off-Broadway play by Jack Gelber that depicted the lives of heroin-addicted musicians in New York, and that two years later became a renowned film directed by Shirley Clarke. Redd appeared in both.

The largely self-taught Redd was particularly known for his compositions, and for his skill as an accompanist.

Even when he was the one soloing, his left hand’s roving chords were often as rich as his right hand’s improvised lines. A native New Yorker, Redd did the inverse of the pilgrimage made by most major jazz musicians: He started his career at the center of the jazz universe, then moved out. And moved, and moved again.

From the mid-’60s on, he would spend stretches in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Guadalajara, Baltimore and Carrboro, North Carolina. In his 80s he returned to New York, where he recorded two albums for the Steeple-Chase label and spent his final years.

Redd told The New York Times that his peripatetic career provided him creative satisfaction — if not always fair pay.

“I like to move around,” he said in a 1991 interview. “It’s always refreshing because you don’t know the nuances, the tricks of the new place. Unfortunately, the price I’ve paid for being a maverick is living a lifestyle that hasn’t been particularly supportive. But I don’t have regrets. There’s a lot out there to find out about, and sometimes you can’t do it in a week or a month.”

Freddie Redd Jr. was born in Harlem on May 29, 1928, to Freddie and Helen (Snipes) Redd. His father was a porter who played the piano at home, and his mother was a homemaker. His father died when Freddie was 2, but he left behind the instrument on which Freddie would teach himself to play.

In addition to his grandson Clarke, Redd is survived by a stepdaughter, Susan Redd; two other grandchildren; and two step-grandchildren. His wife, Valarie (Lyons) Redd, died before him, as did his children, Stephanie Redd and Freddie Redd III.