Freddie Green

b. March 31, 1911 (Charleston, South Carolina)
d. March 1, 1987

American swing jazz guitarist.

From 1937 until his death in 1987, aged seventy-five, Freddie Green occupied the rhythm guitar chair in various ensembles led by pianist Count Basie, backing celebrated players such as saxophonist Lester Young, clarinetist Benny Goodman, and vocalist Billie Holiday, to name a few.

«When he played with Count Basie, everyone knew that Freddie Green was half the orchestra on his own, the man who helped the band breathe. He was the "working lung", and as an accompanist he played "four-to-the-bar" like nobody else. The secret of his swinging lightness lay in the fact that he didn't play all the strings, merely three or four of them.» [Philippe Baudoin]