Don Redman and Benny Carter In the Studio Together

Composing music, arranging it for performance, and keeping the musicians on track are all different skills and each can take a lifetime to develop. Throughout American music history there have been many who excelled as the triple-threat composer/arranger/director. Among that vanguard there is a coterie who were known to also pick up a horn and/or sing a few verses as well. These are the “everythingers.” In any reckoning of jazz history, Don Redman and Benny Carter deserve to head that list. Maybe “everythinger” isn’t the most elegant way to describe someone whose creativity is so comprehensive and versatile, but the term gives an idea of how many aspects of a performance that person influences.

The recorded legacies of Redman and Carter both date back to the 1920s and span several decades. Though neither musician is in danger of being forgotten or overlooked, paeans to their contributions in jazz history must be complemented with actual listening. Though the age in which Redman and Carter emerged is distant, their music surpasses genre, style, or fashion. Many of their tunes and recordings live on and will continue to do so.

Don Redman and his Orchestra

A brief biographical outline: Don Redman (1900-1964) was born in Piedmont, West Virginia. He demonstrated a precocious talent early on, playing trumpet at the age of three before moving on to piano, clarinet, and saxophone. He took a job with a traveling band and eventually wound up in New York City where he joined Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra in 1923. He played reed instruments, wrote tunes, and arranged for the band, including specially designed showcases for Louis Armstrong, Henderson’s imported star from Chicago.

Leaving in 1927 to become music director of the Detroit-based band, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Redman’s multi-faceted role with Henderson was taken by the slightly younger New Yorker, Benny Carter (1907-2003). Carter had played with several bands, proving to be an effective soloist on reed instruments and trumpet. In order to fill Redman’s shoes, Carter taught himself to arrange his fellow bandmates’ parts in new, compelling settings for Henderson’s growing book of dance tunes. Carter didn’t stay long: he left to briefly front his own band before succeeding Redman as music director of McKinney’s in 1931. After a sojourn in Europe, Carter returned to New York as a bandleader in the mid-1930s. He would lead groups and orchestras of various sizes for the next 50+ years; one of the great careers in American music.

Redman also left McKinney’s Cotton Pickers to front his own band. He secured an engagement at Harlem’s famous nightspot, Connie’s Inn, and was the beneficiary of frequent nationwide broadcasts from the club which helped establish the Don Redman Orchestra as one of the leading jazz outfits during the 1930s. While many Americans struggled to find work during the Great Depression, Redman’s band brought music and levity into their living rooms. A jocular frontman, Redman balanced humor with complex musical arrangements in catchy tunes like “I heard,” “Try getting a good night sleep,” and the band’s theme song, “Chant of the weed.” Redman’s rhyming speech-singing banter, full of street slang and wit, is arguably a forerunner of rapping.

Though their paths almost crossed several times, there are instances when they performed together. About a month before the stock market crashed in October 1929, Redman and Carter were both in the studio for Okeh recording with an ensemble called The Little Chocolate Dandies. Featuring the two "everythingers" on alto saxophones with trumpeter Rex Stewart, J.C. Higginbotham on trombone, Coleman Hawkins on tenor saxophone, and pianist Fats Waller, it is an all-star assemblage of leading black musicians of the day. Playing with an old style banjo-tuba-drums rhythm section, the group recorded two songs, Redman’s “That’s how I feel today” and Waller’s “Six or seven times,” both arranged by Redman.

The Little Chocolate Dandies session, Sept. 18, 1929

"That’s how I feel today” opens with four ascending chords played against George Stafford’s insistent hi-hat. Stewart takes the melody with the reed section offering a sober, climbing response. The entire band plays the bridge before Stewart returns for the final A section. Waller improvises a full chorus in his recognizable style, especially the light, right-handed touch to open the bridge. Following Waller, Carter improvises with broad, balanced phrases and filigree touches during the tune’s first two A sections before being joined by the band for a harmonized ensemble line during the bridge, concluding with a series of thrilling ascending figures (preceding by 11 years a similar feature for saxophone chorus in Duke Ellington’s “Cotton Tail”). A brief interlude follows the alto saxophonist’s final A section, and then a last run-through of the form with Higginbotham alternating with the band in a proto-Swing Era call-and-response gesture that at one point sounds like the future big band anthem “Moten Swing.” Redman’s chart efficiently gives all of the musicians a chance to shine within only 3 minutes and 22 seconds of playing time.

The other tune captured by the Dandies on September 18, 1929 was “Six or seven times,” a song which this listener has circled back to more than six or seven dozen times since first hearing it. Waller’s song is funny, describing how the singer’s St. Louis woman is never pleased unless she gets a certain thing from him six or seven times. Without pondering for too long what it is that she craves, cut to the stunning Carter/Redman feature that follows the sung verses. Carter plays single measure ideas followed by Redman singing them back; this pattern is repeated through two 8-bar sections. Though not the possessor of a great singing voice, Redman is a charming and musical vocalist, matching Carter’s phrasing and vibrato accurately while adding humor. The band then takes up the exchanges with Carter.

The imitation episode in “Six or seven times” recalls an aspect of the practice regimen that most players adopt at some point or another. By imitating the playing of someone else, usually from a recording, musicians develop their ear and ability to execute musical ideas in tempo. One way to work on this is to sing the musical phrases before trying to find the notes on your horn.

A month after the Chocolate Dandies session, Duke Ellington recorded “Six or seven times” with his band under the pseudonym Six Jolly Jesters. On that session, the alto sax—voice imitations replicate the Carter and Redman exchange almost exactly. Ellington extends the idea by having Freddy Jenkins take the lead in the second 8-bar section on trumpet with each of his phrases repeated by Johnny Hodges' saxophone. In 1931, Cab Calloway had a hit record with “Six or seven times.” Returning to the Little Chocolate Dandies format, Calloway’s exuberant personality accounts for a thorough reinvention of the tune. Where Redman was casual, Calloway is extroverted and a bit wild; each is compelling in a different way.

I’ve been looking for more examples of instrumentalists being mimicked by a singer. Calloway, of course, used imitative call-and-response in “Minnie the moocher” to great effect, but it his voice that leads the “Hi-de-ho” exchanges with the chorus. For a much later example of the original concept, jump ahead to 1977 where Nigerian saxophonist and Afro-beat pioneer Fela Anikulapo Kuti engaged audiences in a crowd participation exercise that he called the “Underground Spiritual Game.” This featured his playing short ideas on his alto saxophone, which the audience would then repeat back en masse. One of the best illustrations of this “game of togetherness” is “J.J.D.” (“Johnny Just Dropped”). The exchanges go on for a full two minutes with a gradual increase in complexity (12:30-14:30).

There are abundant examples of either Carter or Redman pulling off impressive musical feats, whether it is a composition, arrangement, a tight band performance, playing a solo or singing, often all in the same performance. The imitative call and response in “Six or seven times” is an example of a relatively simple idea given joyous musical expression that is catchy and taken up by other musicians. Far from sounding dated, this inspiration remains fresh and accessible today.

1. That’s how I feel today / The Little Chocolate Dandies (Don Redman) / New York, September 18, 1929
2. Six or seven times / The Little Chocolate Dandies
3. Six or seven times / Six Jolly Jesters (Duke Ellington Orchestra) / New York, October 25, 1929
4. Six or seven times / Cab Calloway and His Orchestra / New York, June 11, 1931
5. J.J.D. (Johnny Just Dropped) / Fela Kuti / 1977

j.s.m.