German saxophonist and arranger Joki Freund began playing in Joe Quitter's band during the late '40s, then played with Jutta Hipp in the mid-'50s, before forming his own hard bop group. He played tuba in Werner Rehm's Two Beat Stompers, a traditional jazz group from 1955 until 1967, and played at various Euopean festivals with visiting American musicians like Donald Byrd, Arthur Taylor, and Doug Watkins. Freund played in a radio jazz group with Albert Mangelsdorff and wrote their arrangments, while playing sax in the '60s and '70s with the Suddeutscher Rundfunk dance orchestra under the direction of Erwin Lehn. He also composed the music for the film Praeludium in Jazz. ~ Ron Wynn, Rovi