A couple of years ago I posted a lesson called "Six Essential Freddie Green Voicings" on my Youtube channel. Last month, like hearing back from a message in a bottle, I got this response in the comments:

This is nothing like the Freddie Green style. It is what most musicians play when asked to do Freddie, but he always omitted the bass notes (as is standard practice in big band jazz rhythm playing) and by the 1940s had pared his approach down to just one or two notes, mainly on the D string.

Now, I appreciate the attention to detail, and anyone who cares enough about this kind of music to talk about Freddie Green's style in terms of specific decades has my implicit respect. Besides, getting feedback comes with the territory, and if someone has taken the time to actually watch a lesson, and then to write about it, I appreciate their engagement, too. But I do think this response raises a couple of interesting points.

First, the term "Freddie Green chords" is a handle of convenience, as is another highly flawed but useful term I still use, "Travis picking." Around my house, we actually call these "the western swing chords," because those are the kind of songs we use them for if we're playing music with friends. But I call them "Freddie Green chords" when I'm teaching so people know what I'm referring to, because that's what everyone else I know calls them too.

But more to the point, as far the difference between "the Freddie Green style" and "what most musicians play..." Many musicians not preoccupied with doing a precise recreation of a specific era do play the root of these voicings (or the fifth, or whatever note is on the sixth string at the time), for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that this is an incredibly useful way to back up another guitar player or singer when there is in fact no bass player around, much less an entire big band.

So while it's valuable to understand how how Green actually comped with Count Basie, I think we can talk about Freddie Green chords as a more general idea, just like we can, for better or worse, talk about Travis picking whether or not we're working on "Cannonball Rag" or, for that matter, talk about "cowboy chords" without any plans to play "Streets of Laredo" anytime soon.

As far as why I was poking through the comments on two-year-old videos, that's because next next weekend I am offering an updated and improved version of the very first Reliable Source workshop I did back in 2023. That class was called Freddie Green Chords, and I've been reviewing how I taught things last time around as I put this update together.

For the 2023 class, I focused entirely on the twelve-bar blues, showing how you can start with the bones of the progression – just one version each of the I, IV and V chord – and slowly build things up, one voicing at a time, until you're changing chords every two beats throughout an entire chorus.

Freddie Green Chords: Blues & Rhythm Changes will expand on that original idea by applying those same Freddie Green-style voicings and chord substitutions to an eight-bar blues and the classic 32-bar chord progression known as "rhythm changes," as well as the twelve-bar blues.

By comparing how the same voicings and substitutions work in multiple situations, you'll come away from workshop with all the hands-on moves you need to for "Trouble In Mind," "See See Rider" and "I Got Rhythm," as well as a plan for how to apply those ideas to plenty of similar songs in the future. 

The workshop will take place Saturday, February 1st, and registration is now open. You can learn more about the workshop and sign up at the link below:

Freddie Green Chords: Blues & Rhythm Changes

In the meantime, I've made a short Youtube lesson in which I go through one of the most important ideas from the upcoming workshop: how the A section to a seemingly-complicated chord progression like Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" is still built up from the same I, IV and V chords as a blues. You can find it (and leave your comments!) here:

Freddie Green Rhythm Changes

More soon,

David