Don Redman was a composer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist widely regarded as the first great arranger in jazz history. Born in Piedmont, West Virginia, in 1900, he brought formal musical training and a gift for orchestration to the emerging big band format. As chief arranger for Fletcher Henderson's orchestra from 1923 to 1927, he developed the call-and-response interplay between brass and reed sections that became the foundation of big band arranging. He went on to serve as musical director of McKinney's Cotton Pickers and later led his own orchestra through the 1930s. Redman's original compositions include the jazz standards Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You and Cherry, both written during his time with McKinney's Cotton Pickers, and Chant of the Weed, which served as the theme for his own band. His writing blended melodic warmth with inventive orchestral textures, setting a template that swing-era arrangers would follow for decades. He later worked with Count Basie, Cab Calloway, and Pearl Bailey, and contributed arrangements and music for radio and early television. Redman's innovations in scoring for jazz ensemble were so influential that virtually every big band that followed owed something to his methods.
