Transcription: All Of Me

Composer: Seymour Simons / Gerald Marks
From the album: Count Basie - Live in Japan '78
Leader of the session: Count Basie
Recorded: May 21, 1978
CD: Pablo PACD-2308-246-2
Transcription starts at 0'16"; ends at 1'15"
Tempo: 132 beats per minute

Freddie Green was 67 years old when this recording was made, but his feel and time were still rock solid. Freddie guitar is quite audible in this transcribed passage as the rhythm section is interrupted by the horns only in a few measures.

Here is yet another recording that disproves two commonly held beliefs about Freddie's style: 1) He always played three note chords. 2) He always changed the chord voicing on every beat.

Listen to measures 3 - 4, measures 7 - 8, and measures 17 - 18. Freddie clearly plays the same voicing for eight beats consecutively, and the voicing is not three notes, but one or two. Though he likely fingered a three note chord form, he was not sounding all of the fingered notes.

Note the moving line in measures 5 - 6 and again in measures 21 - 22. It is a "Freddie Green lick". He frequently used this chord pattern for any dominant seventh chord that lasted at least two measures.

As always, Freddie places the vast majority of the clearly sounded notes on the 4th string and the 3rd string. The transcribed notes show only the pitches that can be definitely discerned. The chord diagrams provide suggestions on what muted notes may have been sounded simultaneously with the transcribed notes.

Important: The chord diagrams illustrate probable fingering forms used by Freddie Green based on extensive research conducted by the primary contributors to this web site. As there is no video record of this recording session, Freddie's exact fingerings will never be known.

An "x" indicates that a finger is placed on the string, but the string is not fully pushed down to make contact with the fret.
A "black dot" indicates that a finger is placed on the string, and the string is pushed down to make contact with the fret.
A "white dot" indicates that a finger is placed on the string, and the string is pushed down to make contact with the fret. A white dot also indicates that the note is added to the chord form on the previous beat. Adding an upper note on beat 2 or 4 is a typical Freddie Green technique.
If there is no "x", "black dot", or "white dot", the string is fully damped by a finger of the left hand.

Left hand fingerings are not included; experiment to find fingerings that work for your technique. Note that Freddie often used his left thumb on the sixth string.

Transcribed by Michael Pettersen
April 2004