01 February 2022

Don Redman Swing Inventor? Phantom Dancer 1 February 2022

Greg Poppleton's Phantom Dancer swing jazz radio show

Don Redman is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist. Don Redman was a U.S jazz musician, arranger, bandleader and composer. He’s hailed as the arranger who invented swing. He’s the uncle of saxophonist Dewey Redman and great-uncle of saxophonist Joshua Redman and trumpeter Carlos Redman.

The Phantom dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

LISTEN to this week’s Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 1 February) and two years of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

Here’s Don Redman singing with his Orchestra in a Vitaphone short feature from 1933…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO-l1kJnKyo

DON REDMAN

Don Redman’s father was a music teacher. His mother was a singer. He started playing trumpet at age 3 and joined his first band at the aged 6.

By the time he was 12, he was proficient on all wind instruments ranging from trumpet to oboe as well as piano.

He studied at Storer College in Harper’s Ferry (where the third video, The Don Redman Jazz Heritage Awards was filmed, see below.). He then studied at the Boston Conservatory.

On graduating he joined Billy Page’s Broadway Syncopaters in New York City.

SWING

Crucial to the developement of swing, Redman joined the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in 1923 on clarinet and saxophones. He began writing arrangements for the Henderson Orchestra which created the Swing sound.

A trademark of Redman’s arrangements was the band playing harmony under written solos. He played brass and reed sections off each other in a call-response pattern, having one section punctuate the figures of another, and moved the melody around different orchestral sections and soloists. This innovative Swing sound forms the basis of much big band jazz writing.

He left Henderson in 1927 to join McKinney’s Cotton Pickers as their musical director and leader. He was responsible for their great success and arranged over half of their music. In 1931 he started his own orchestra.

ORCHESTRA

With his own band, Redman started at a residency at the Manhattan jazz club Connie’s Inn. Redman signed with Brunswick Records and undertook a series of radio broadcasts – part of one you’ll hear on this week’s Phantom Dancer.

He sang with his orchestra, sharing the microphone with the ‘Black Crosby’, Harlan Lattimore. By 1937, his orchestra featured ‘The Swing Choir’. Redman’s vocal style on his own songs like ‘I Heard’ and ‘Try Getting a Good Night’s Sleep’ is recitative in style.

Don Redman and Orchestra in the 1933 Betty Boop cartoon, “I Heard”…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rABrHxCuT7M

Redman disbanded his orchestra in 1940 and concentrated on freelance work writing arrangements for Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie, and Harry James.

He traveled to Europe in 1946 leading an all-star band that included Don Byas, Tyree Glenn, and Billy Taylor. He appeared on Uptown Jubilee on the CBS Television network for the 1949 season. In the 1950s, he was music director for singer Pearl Bailey.

In the early 1960s, he played piano for the Georgia Minstrels Concert and soprano sax with Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle’s band.

Don Redman’s legacy continues – The Don Redman Jazz Heritage Awards, 2016…

1 FEBRUARY PLAY LIST