McKinney's Cotton Pickers - Cherry (1928)

CHERRY
Words by Ray Gilbert, music by Don Redman
McKinney's Cotton Pickers
Directed by Don Redman, vocal by Jean Napier
Recorded July 12, 1928, Chicago

Personnel:
Don Redman (reeds, director, arranger), John Nesbitt (trumpet), Langston Curl (trumpet), Claude Jones (trombone), Milton Senior (clarinet), George Thomas (alto sax), Prince Robinson (clarinet, tenor sax), Todd Rhodes (piano), Dave Wilborn (banjo), Ralph Escudero (tuba), Cuba Austin (drums), Jean Napier (vocal)

(Note: The date shown at the beginning of the video is wrong. The correct date is July 12, 1928)

Although McKinney's Cotton Pickers is properly regarded as a Midwest band, its growth was traceable to a number of sources. In 1924, which was about the time Don Redman joined Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra in New York, McKinney's was a band that depended only partly on musicianship. Taking its name from William McKinney, a former circus drummer, it went in for vaudeville, for comic effects and musical tomfoolery. This was not unusual for bands of the time. That jazz had to be "sold" was still a widely held opinion.

But jazz was already on its way and McKinney's was destined to become one of the important bands on the 1920's, linking the early jazz of bands that worked usually without orchestrations and with very simple instrumentation, to those that came later-- the name bands of the Thirties in which an instrumentation of seven brass, four reed and four rhythm instruments was generally the minimum.

Don Redman was the moving spirit of McKinney's Cotton Pickers. It was while he was musical director of the group, between 1928 and 1931, that it became famous --- and through records, was to become increasingly so --- for its pioneering in the field of arranged jazz. Meanwhile the band was not devoid of talent; if so, it would hardly have been worth Redman's while to join up.. William McKinney did not play with the band during its most famous period, but helped manage it and the name stuck. (Not to be confused with the White band known simply as "The Cotton Pickers", which grew out of The Memphis Five.")

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