Jazz breaking news: Free Blowing Saxophonist Fred Anderson Of The Velvet Lounge Club In Chicago Dies

A free jazz-inclined saxophonist, he was a founding member of the influential Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in 1965 and more recently the founder in 1982 of Chicago jazz club the Velvet Lounge. At the club he encouraged a new stream of improvisers including percussionist Hamid Drake, with whom he often performed, and more recently rising star saxophonist Matana Roberts.

Born in Louisiana on 22 March 1929, Anderson took up the tenor saxophone while living in Evanston, Illinois. Later in Chicago he became a founding member of the AACM along with an influential generation of artists including the composer Muhal Richard Abrams. He toured with AACM groups and recorded with Joseph Jarman, better known for his work with the AACM-associated Art Ensemble of Chicago.

In the mid-1970s Anderson opened a short-lived night club called the Birdhouse but then in 1982 he started a new venture, the Velvet Lounge, with which his name has since been associated.

On the club’s website there is a quote from Mr Anderson: “I got fascinated over this music, and I just wanted to make a contribution. It ain’t nothing but folk music, like Hungarian folk music. It is all the same thing. That’s why I think Bartok is so good. He was playing and writing Hungarian folk music.”

Anderson's albums include The Missing Link (1979), Vintage Duets 1.11.1980 (1980) with drummer Steve McCall, Birdhouse (1994-5) and Live at the Velvet Lounge (1998).

– Stephen Graham