Kohlman, (Louis) Freddie
Kohlman, (Louis) Freddie
Kohlman, (Louis) Freddie, early, long-careered jazz drummer, vocalist, leader; b. New Orleans, Aug. 25, 1918; d. New Orleans, Sept. 29, 1990. As a teenager, he began playing with numerous parade bands in his hometown, after receiving some basic lessons on the drums from Louis Cottrell Sr., and Manuel Marietta. When he was about 25, he moved to Chicago, where he worked in a more modern style with a quartet that featured boogie pianist Albert Ammons and violinist Stuff Smith. In the late 1930s, he briefly worked in Detroit before returning to his hometown in 1941. From 1944, he led his own New Orleans revival band, except for a brief six-month stint in the mid-1950s with Louis Armstrong’s All Stars. In the late 1950s, he was back in Chicago working at clubs, but by the 1960s he was working again in New Orleans. In the last decades of his life, he made many European tours as a soloist and with revival bands. In the 1980s, he performed with the Milan, Italy-based Jambalaya Six on tours of Italy and Switzerland. He made two records; oddly, his earlier album, recorded in 1953, was the more modern of the two, with hints of bebop-meets-Dixieland in its arrangements. His second recording, 1980’s Take Me Back to New Orleans, was a conscious attempt to recreate the oldstyle New Orleans parade bands, featuring British revivalist Chris Barber and American pianist Dr. John. Kohlmann died of cancer in his home.
—Lewis Porter