Scott Free is a Professor of Jazz Composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Born in New Orleans, Free studied music at the University of Southern Mississippi and toured with the USM jazz lab band. In 1972 he came to Boston to study and earned a Bachelor of Music Degree in Composition from Berklee, joining the faculty in 1975. In 1982 he completed a Master of Music Degree in Jazz Studies at New England Conservatory with honors. He has studied composition with Herb Pomeroy, Jaxon Stock, George Russell, Mike Gibbs, W. Thomas McKinley, Gerald O'Neil and Hugo Norden. His lessons on jazz guitar began with Jack Edwards. While in Boston he studied with Mick Goodrick and Pat Metheny.
Free has played guitar in Berklee faculty big bands since 1988 and is a featured composer in the Faculty Concert Series. His compositions and arrangements have been performed by well known musicians including Joe Hunt, George Garzone, Phil Wilson, and Walter Beasley to mention a few. Free’s works have been performed at colleges including M.I.T., Brown University, Princeton University, Providence College, and Harvard University as well as at jazz festivals in Europe, Scandinavia, New England, and the southern U.S.
Scott Free has performed in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, the southern U. S. and throughout the New England area with groups that have included Tony Award winning singer James Naughton, saxophonist Tim Ries, bassist Steve Laspina, sax/clarinetist John LaPorta, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, drummer Yoron Israel, Jay Azzolina and many others. His arrangements have appeared in textbooks and have been performed by bands from Vermont to Louisiana, from California to New York as well as Europe. Recordings of his guitar performance and compositions have been aired on N.P.R. and other radio stations in Boston, Providence, and New York City. He endorses Evans Custom Amplifiers (www.evansamps.com).
Free is a member of ASCAP, IAJE (artist outreach) and Pi Kappa Lambda honors society. As a guest clinician/lecturer/adjudicator he has appeared at jazz festivals or music conventions in Italy (Umbria), Finland, at Boston’s Symphony Hall (Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra), Paris (American School of Mod. Music), at I.C.O.M. in Kuala Lumpur, as well as Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Mississippi, Georgia, and New Orleans, Louisiana. He has received numerous awards from ASCAP as well as the Ted Pease award at Berklee for his contribution to the improvement of teaching. His former students hold important posts in Japan, Scandinavia, Korea, Europe, Malaysia, Canada, and the U.S.
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