Music
Don Redman
1900–1964 · arranger, composer, saxophonist, bandleader
Pioneering swing arranger who left Fletcher Henderson in 1927 to lead McKinney's Cotton Pickers in Detroit, turning the Graystone house band into a national star.
- Born
Piedmont, West Virginia- Died
New York City
aged 64- Birth name
- Donald Matthew Redman
- Detroit years
- 1927–1931
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Redman was a prodigy who played trumpet at three and could handle every wind instrument by twelve. With Fletcher Henderson's orchestra from 1923 he developed the arranging techniques that became the basis of swing: brass and reed sections answering one another in call and response, harmonized written solos and melodies passed around the band. In 1927 Detroit impresario Jean Goldkette persuaded him to leave New York and take charge of McKinney's Cotton Pickers, the Black band Goldkette had installed at his Graystone Ballroom on Woodward Avenue. As musical director and leader Redman wrote more than half of the band's book, sharing arranging duties with trumpeter John Nesbitt, and his work made the Cotton Pickers' Victor records of 1928–1931 bestsellers and the band a rival to Henderson and Ellington. He left Detroit in 1931 to form his own orchestra in New York, later arranged hits for Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie and Harry James, and in the 1950s was music director for Pearl Bailey.
Highlights
- Chief architect of the big-band arranging style with Fletcher Henderson
- Musical director of McKinney's Cotton Pickers in Detroit, 1927–1931
- Arranged more than half of the Cotton Pickers' repertoire
- Led his own orchestra from 1931; music director for Pearl Bailey in the 1950s
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Performed here · 1927–1931
Graystone Ballroom
Demolished · 1922–1972
Goldkette's Woodward Avenue ballroom, home base of McKinney's Cotton Pickers during Redman's years as their leader.