Count Basie’s Guitarist Freddie Green
The times that Count Basie's guitarist Freddie Green contributed a composition of his own to the band's repertoire are scarce. During his 50 year career with Basie Green wrote only 18 pieces of music. This is one of them, "Down For Double."
Count Basie and his Orchestra with Ed Lewis, Buck Clayton, Harry Edison, and Al Killian- trumpets; Dicky Wells, Robert Scott, Eli Robinson-trombones; Earl Warren and Tab Smith-alto saxophones; Don Byas and Buddy Tate-tenor saxophones; Jack Washington-bariton saxophone.
And the so-called "All-American Rhyhtm Section”: Count Basie-piano, Freddie Green-guitar; Walter Page-bass; Jo Jones-drums.
The arrangement was made by Buck Clayton. The soloist are Dicky Wells on trombone and Buddy Tate on tenor saxophone. It was recorded for Columbia in New York on November 17, 1941.
Frederick William Green (1911-1987) was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and at age 12 he started playing the banjo.
In his twenties he was playing locally with a band called the Nighthawks and by 1930 he moved to New York where he worked by day as an upholsterer while playing gigs at night at dance clubs like the Yeah Man Club. There, the club manager gave Green the advise to switch from banjo to guitar. Soon guitarist Green was playing at the Excelsior Club with pianist Willie Gant and by 1936 he landed a high profile spot in Greenwich Village playing in the Black Cat Club with Lonnie Simmons and drummer Kenny Clark.
It was during Green’s eleven dollars a week appearance at the Black Cat that John Hammond discovered him and admired his exceptional guitar talents. Hammond was so impressed that he set up an audition with the Count Basie band. Basie became an immediate fan too and offered Green a job that would last until Green‘s death, half a century later.
Green only played acoustic guitars and he had a peculiar way to hold the guitar at a steep angle in relation to his body.
Green’s guitar technique was to play only certain notes of each chord and muting the others, which gave a chunky rhythm sound without creating unnecessary harmonic presence to interfere with notes sounded by other members of the orchestra.
The Count Basie band with Freddie Green always swung like mad. Together with bassist Page, drummer Jones and the Count, Freddie Green -- in the words of Nat Shapiro on an RCA album cover -- “made the Basie rhythm section a unit that has never been equaled for both drive and brilliance.”
"Freddie Green has been my right arm for thirty years,“ Count Basie said in the 60s. “And if he leaves the band one day, I'll probably leave with him.” Basie described Green as “a tieup man, not only because he’s very steady, but because he actually holds the band together.”
In all his time with Basie, almost no one could remember Freddie taking a solo.
“I’ve played rhythm so long,” said Freddie, “that it’s just the same as playing solos as far as I’m concerned. The rhythm guitar is very important”,“ he continued. “A performance has what I call a ‘rhythm wave,’ and the rhythm guitar can help to keep that wave smooth an accurate. I have to concentrate on the beat, listening for how smooth it is. If the band is moving smoothly, then I can play whatever comes to mind, but that doesn’t happen too often.”
It was after Greens final gig with Basie, on March 1, 1987, that he collapsed and died from a massive heart attack. Freddie Green’s rhythm swing sound remains unparalleled to this day.
More on Freddie Green can be found on the excellent website “Freddie Green - Master of the rhythm guitar.” http://www.freddiegreen.org/
