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Downbeat Magazine Mr. Rhythm is the first LP under the leadership of the world's greatest rhythm guitarist, Count Basie's unamplified tieup man. His colleagues here are Al Cohn, tenor and clarinet; Joe Newman and Henry Coker from the Basie band; Nat Pierce, playing Basie-like piano but with only a fair portion of the authoritative smack of the original; bassist Milt Hinton, and alternating drummers Jo Jones and Osie Johnson. Freddie is author of the eight slim originals, and the arrangements are by Al Cohn (3), Ernie Wilkins (5), and Manny Albam (4). Victor should have done better by Freddie and his first LP, much better. First of all, unlike John Hammond's care in Vanguard's Jo Jones Special to provide space for fire to spread, Jack Lewis unwisely crammed 12 tunes into one LP. And these 12, although Freddie's riff-built ideas are attractive and lean and the arrangements are loose and swinging, have too much of a sameness about them over a whole 12" set. Secondly, the solos by the horns aren't long enough, and although Newman and Cohn are particularly good, no one really flies here. Thirdly, since this is Freddie's LP, there should have been longer stretches of rhythm section under sparse piano so that a closer look could have been taken at Freddie's mastery of the "rhythm wave." What we have here is a quite pleasant, pulsating set that could have been titled by just anybody's name on the date. It is not distinctly a Freddie Greene (sic) showcase and it is only mildly recommended. Victor ought to give Freddie another outing and next time learn to how and next time ought to learn how to spell his name. Editor's note: Victor did spell Freddie's last name correctly– "Green." It was the Downbeat reviewer who had the last name incorrect as "Greene." |