Freddie Green
Frederick William Green was born in Charleston, March 31, 1911. While not
an orphan himself, Green often played with the Jenkins
Orphanage Band and taught himself music. Green stated in an interview, "As
far as music is concerned, Charleston has always been musical." The band
often traveled into Green's neighborhood, and he would follow them all around
the city. At the time The Orphanage
Band was a marching band. The orphanage band was a place for poor children
to get musical training.
Green migrated to New York in 1923 because he felt that he would not be able to
make it as a musician in Charleston. Green was first heard by the legendary John
Hammond who subsequently recommended him to Count
Basie. While in Harlem, he played at the Yeah Man with Lonnie
Simmons, and the two then moved on to the Exclusive Club. They, along with
fellow Jenkins alumni Cat Anderson, worked in a group
known as the Nighthawks. The Nighthawks included several of the best players from
the orphanage. Green attributes the musical influences of his youth to the music
that he heard coming from New York into Charleston.
Green was a model of loyalty: an un-amplified guitar player he joined Count
Basie in 1937 and continued to play with him for almost 50 years. Green never took a solo but provided the
essential pulse that propelled the driving swing of the band and laid the background for some of the most famous
solos to arise out of the big band era.
