Freddie Green

A web site devoted to Freddie Green [link]

Who was Freddie Green? To quote from his obituary in Downbeat:

Freddie Green, guitarist with the Count Basie Orchestra for half a century, died March 1 in Las Vegas of an apparent heart attack. He was 75. Green was the last surviving member of Basie's "All-American Rhythm Section" which included Basie on piano, Walter Page on bass, and Joe Jones on drums. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Green was introduced to Basie by record producer John Hammond, who had discovered the guitarist playing in a Greenwich Village nightclub. Green was not the Basie band's first guitarist, but he remained with the orchestra far longer than anyone else after joining it in March 1937. He rarely took solos, concentrating instead on rhythmic accompaniment. His playing, in the words of music critic George T. Simon, was "wonderfully light yet propulsive". Green also recorded several albums under his own name, as well as with Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, and many others.