Don Redman

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Don Redman was born in 1900 in Piedmont, West Virginia. His father was a music teacher, his mother a singer. At three he played the trumpet, and at twelve he had mastered almost all the wind instruments, from trumpet to oboe, and piano as well. After studying at Storer College and the Boston conservatory he moved to New York. In the early 1920s he joined Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, where he mainly played clarinet and saxophone and soon began writing the arrangements.

Music and breakthrough

Those arrangements made him important. Redman set the brass against the reeds: one section played a figure, the other answered. He let the melody move from section to section and from soloist to soloist, and wrote harmonies underneath the solos. In this way he laid the foundation for the sound that would later be called swing, and for much big band music in the decades afterwards. In 1927 he became musical director of McKinney's Cotton Pickers, and in 1931 he started his own orchestra, which played for a long time at Connie's Inn in Manhattan. With Chant of the Weed he had a first hit that year. His records for Brunswick from 1931 to 1934 are among the most intricate jazz arrangements from before the swing era.

Influence

After 1940 Redman disbanded his band and wrote arrangements for Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie and Harry James, among others. In the 1950s he led the band of the singer Pearl Bailey. He died in 1964 in New York. His cousin Dewey Redman and second cousin Joshua Redman also became saxophonists.

Listening

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 1: The Origins of Pop Music^NL Reader
• After Hours: Session 1^NL Reader

Mentioned in other articles

• Big band GenreFletcher Henderson and Don Redman laid the foundation in New York in the 1920s; Duke Ellington wrote for the personal sound of his own musicians.