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Don Redman
Albums
- List Price: $19.98
- Member Price: $17.98
Appearances
The Hot Fives & Sevens are such an enormously important body of work that it seems like it would be impossible to separate wheat from chaff. But, really, would anyone [more]
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- Member Price: $11.98
Of less importance than the concurrent release of The Best of Louis Armstrong: The Hot Five and Seven Recordings is Satch Blows the Blues, since it only distills the great [more]
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Draw up a list of some of the top jazz artists of all time, and the legend featured in this recording would likely be at the top of that list. Louis [more]
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This four-CD set does its best to summarize Louis Armstrong's career during 1923-1934, reissuing 81 of his finest recordings. The problem is that virtually [more]
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With cooperation from the Verve and Columbia Legacy catalogs, the Ken Burns Jazz series on CD individually spotlights the musical excellence of 22 jazz originators whose careers [more]
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- Member Price: $11.98
"Armstrong jovially balanced his calling as a musician with his job as an entertainer, applying his virtuosity while showing audiences a good time." —New York Times
In conjunction with the release of Ken Burns' ten-part, 19-hour epic PBS documentary {#Jazz}, Columbia issued 22 single-disc compilations devoted to jazz's most significant [more]
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Count Basie's Columbia years have long been debated, subject to apocryphal written data and legend because of the willy-nilly nature of his tenure with the label [more]
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Living Era presents a sensibly constructed three-part tribute to cornetist, bandleader, and author Rex Stewart. The chronology begins with two examples of [more]
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1921-1940. 23 classic tracks, both small and large backup bands (Fletcher Henderson). Good sound. ~ Michael Erlewine, All Music Guide
- List Price: $15.98
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This LP was the very first release by the Stash label and, as with its first dozen or so collections, it features vintage material that deals with illicit [more]
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Biography
- Born Jul 29th 1900 in Piedmont, WV
- Died Nov 30th 1964 in New York, NY
- Styles
- Early Jazz
- Instrument(s)
The first great arranger in jazz history, Don Redman's innovations as a writer essentially invented the jazz-oriented big band with arrangements that developed yet left room for solo improvisations.
After graduating from college at the age of 20 with a music degree, Redman played for a year with Billy Paige's Broadway Syncopators and then met up with Fletcher Henderson. Redman became Henderson's chief arranger (although Fletcher was often later on mistakenly given credit for the innovative charts) in addition to playing clarinet, alto, and (on at least one occasion) oboe. Redman, whose largely spoken vocals were charming, recorded the first ever scat vocal on "My Papa Doesn't Two Time" in early 1924, predating Louis Armstrong. Although his early arrangements were futuristic, they could be a bit stiff, and it was not until Armstrong joined Henderson's orchestra that Redman (learning from the brilliant cornetist) began to really swing in his writing; "Sugar Foot Stomp" and "The Stampede" are two of his many classic charts.
It was a shock to Fletcher Henderson when Redman was persuaded in 1927 by Jean Goldkette to direct McKinney's Cotton Pickers. Redman soon turned the previously unknown group into a strong competitor of Henderson's, composing such future standards as "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You" and "Cherry." He sang more, emphasized his alto over his more primitive sounding clarinet (guesting on some famous recordings with Louis Armstrong's Savoy Ballroom Five in 1928), and made a strong series of memorable records. In 1931, Redman put together his own big band which lasted (if not prospered) up until 1941. After that, he freelanced as an arranger for the remainder of the swing era, led an all-star orchestra in 1946 that became the first band to visit postwar Europe, and eventually became Pearl Bailey's musical director. Although he recorded a few sessions in the late '50s, Don Redman's main significance is for his influential work of the 1920s and '30s. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
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