That happened quite belatedly, with a 75th birthday celebration in Grant Park during the Chicago Jazz Festival (1997, though Freeman was 73); a DownBeat cover story, his first in a major jazz magazine (2001); an 80th birthday celebration in Symphony Center, in which he told the audience, "I feel like a king" (2002, Freeman was 79); and two stunning recordings -- the best of his career -- on Premonition ("The Improvisor," of 2002, and "The Great Divide," of 2004). Though the acclaim didn't make Freeman a household name, except in some very sophisticated households, it brought him a measure of recognition he never sought and certainly never expected.