Jazz Casual was series on NET (the public television predecessor to PBS) which ran for a total of 31 episodes between 1960 and 1968. Each episode featured a half-hour set from a jazz legend, hosted by music critic Ralph Gleason. The final episode featured a quartet led by pianist and bandleader Count Basie and aired on May 6, 1968. When told that the cameras were rolling, The Count didn’t call a tune, or even count off a tempo – he just started playing. The other musicians (Sonny Payne, drums; Norman Keenan, bass; and Freddie Green, guitar) certainly knew the sound of Rhythm Changes (the chord progression from Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”) when they heard it, so they just jumped right in.

With the help of just a couple hand signals, Keenan and Payne solo* on a couple of choruses, and then they all end together. When Ralph Gleason enters the bandstand and sits down next to Basie, he asks, “What was the name of that?” and the reply he gets is, “I don’t know.”

*Freddie Green was only ever interested in playing rhythm guitar. He and Count Basie started playing together in 1937 and worked together nearly continuously right up until The Count’s death in 1984. There was even a point when The Count had to break up his big band because money was tight, and went on tour with a small group which was NOT supposed to include Freddie Green. But Green went along anyway, without pay, because he “didn’t know what else to do with himself.”