Kendrick Freeman is a Bay Area drummer, percussionist, and teacher.
He has background in both drum set and hand drums, having studied with American artists and musicians from Ghana, Congo, and the Caribbean, with an emphasis on the music of Haiti.
His drum set and traditional drumming studies inform each other, and he has been flexible enough to work with a wide range of artists in a number of styles and settings, among them national dobro ace Rob Ickes, string wizard Joe Craven and Americana singer/songwriters Sean Carscadden and Keith Greeninger. He has been a member of Ricardo Peixoto’s quintet for the last 5 years.
He has performed with Bay Area Haitian dance companies Group Petit La Croix, led by Blanche Brown and Rara Tou Limen, directed by Portsha Jefferson and master drummer Daniel Brevil.
Like all working musicians, he does freelance work with a large pool of Bay Area players. He teaches privately and at Sonoma State University, where he leads an ensemble in the Jazz Program. Kendrick has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alliance for California Traditional Arts.
