Transcription: All Of Me (1964)

Title: All of Me
Composers: Seymour Simons / Gerald Marks
From the television program: The Big Bands
Leader of the session: Count Basie
Recorded: September 1964, New York City
Transcription starts at 0’11”; ends at 2’58”
Tempo: 126 beats per minute

"All of Me" was performed frequently by Basie. The band discography lists 61 separate recordings with the first being in 1941. This Billy Byers arrangement is the most famous.

Freddie Green was 53 years old at the time of this recording. His unique style of rhythm guitar was well established. Freddie is audible throughout this track with only a few notes being masked by the band.

These 86 measures illustrate the pitches often chosen by Freddie as he improvised his rhythm guitar part based on the written chord changes. His musical goal was to create a musical line enhancing the bass part. Like a viola or a cello, Freddie plays a moving inner line. The transcription does not document his feel, his swing, and his many variations of the quarter note length. One must listen to the recording to hear these subtleties.

Here again is another recording that disproves two myths about Freddie's style. Myth #1: he always used three-note voicings. Myth #2: he changed the chord voicing on every beat.

Notable aspects of this transcription are:

Measure 1, beat 2, he sounds a plain vanilla C major triad.
Measure 7 is an oddity with the guitar being mute on beat 1, followed by five repetitions of an F major triad at the 10th fret; C- F-A being the top portion of Dm7. This is an exceptionally high pitched voicing for Freddie.
Measures 15-16 contain a rising melodic line with a suspension on a C. Freddie played this memorable line on nearly every recording from the 1960s onward.
Measure 60 has a Bb7 with Freddie playing the 9th (C) creating a Bb9.
Measure 70 contains another ninth, but this time the flatted 9th (Bb).
In measure 74 Freddie creates harmonic tension by delaying the resolution to F# until beat 3.
Note well measures 33-34, 37-38, 39-40, 45-56, 65-66, 71-72, and 75-76 where Freddie sounds the same note for eight consecutive beats.

Freddie simplifies his rhythm guitar part when the entire band is playing but becomes more adventurous when only the rhythm section is playing.

As always, Freddie places the vast majority of the clearly sounded notes on the fourth string and the third string. When a pitch could not be definitively discerned during the transcription process, a note was added that Freddie might have played based on his style.

Left hand fingerings are not included. Experiment to find the fingerings that work for your technique. Freddie often used his left thumb to mute the six string.

Transcribed by Michael Pettersen and David Williams
July/August 2024