Jazz · swing · 4/4 swing

Freddie Green four-to-the-bar

160 bpm Loop: all
triplets
Clave
Piano
Guitar
Bass

Mixer

Keyboard

Strums

1
↓↓↓↓
2
↓↓↓↓

Freddie Green's four-to-the-bar — the rhythm guitar sound of the Count Basie band for fifty years: one downstroke on every quarter note, all four the same weight, each chord damped the instant the next is struck so the guitar is felt more than heard. Green used tiny voicings — usually only two or three notes actually sounding, the root on the sixth string, the 7th or 6th on the fourth string, the 3rd on the third string, the other strings muted by the fretting hand. Those three-note shapes are used here on purpose.

How it sits: it is the time itself. The bass walks the same quarters; the piano (Basie) says almost nothing — a single high "plink" on the and-of-4 at the end of the phrase. The percussion layer is quarter notes standing in for the hi-hat.

Listen for the slight lean on 2 and 4 that a good rhythm guitarist adds without ever changing the attack, and for how little the piano needs to play.

Practice: mute the bass and keep the four strums dead even at 160, then 240. Standard practice; no transcribed source.

Sources

  • standard practice (Freddie Green / Basie rhythm section); no transcribed source

Keyboard

Space
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1–6
Mute layer 1–6
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Tempo −5 / +5
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