The record changer (Jan-Dec 1951)

4 of blaring out like wild men. 'Don't drown the singers,' he would tell us. Maybe that's because he was a singer, but it made us realize the value of dynamics nonetheless. "Then we played the Congress Hotel in Baltimore. Another season at Manitau Beach and then we got a good break as relief band at the Arcadia Ballroom in Detroit." At this point in Austin's story the year of 1926 was drawing to a close. The band had not yet started recording for Victor, although the Synco Jazz Band had made some primitive records for Pathe, which require an old-time lateral pickup to play. Their style was merely routine dance music, embellished with a lot of tomfoolery and stunts. Like most other bands of the day, they did lots of novelty numbers requiring a profusion of paper hats, whistles, bells and other gimmicks. They used only stock arrangements of a simple nature. There was little hint of the distinctiveness that lay ahead. Then Jean Goldkette began his association with William McKinney — one which was to have great influence. Goldkette was originally a concert pianist who had been soloist with the Detroit Symphony, but also he was a clever and an enterprising business man. In addition to his own orchestra he controlled many other organizations: the Studebaker Champions (a radio group), The Orange Blossoms (later to become Glen Gray's Casa Loma Orchestra) and scores of lesser-known bands — all billed as Goldkette units, in the manner of Meyer Davis' string of outfits today. Old issues of Orchestra World magazine, for example, show advertisements of dozens of these bands, all with the same address in the Jean Goldkette Building in Detroit. "In 1927," Goldkette wrote us, "my own band was going along in good shape and I began thinking about organizing an all-colored orchestra. "About that time a nice chap by the name of Bill McKinney used to drop into our office and became acquainted with some of the boys. I understood he had a little band in another dance hall down the street. I don't think the band meant much and finally we learned that they were through on the job and McKinney was free. When I met him he impressed me as a very clean cut young fellow with a nice gentlemanly manner and he expressed a desire to be tied up with us in some way. It struck my fancy that he might be the very fellow around whom we could experiment and develop something outstanding. We struck a deal with Mac and went to work. "We used very much the same cautious tactics in our efforts to select the most talented players, arrangers and to enforce regular rehearsal sessions. With my own band touring the country most of the time at that period, we established McKinney's Cotton Pickers in my Graystonc Ball Room in Detroit much in the same way as we used the Graystonc as a permanent home for my orchestra, thus giving them a sense of permanency, security and a place in which to develop." . So it was a happy bunch outfitted in new brightly colored blazers that began this new engagement. Soon things began to hum. Early in 1927, John Nesbitt, a trumpet player with arranging talent, joined up, followed shortly by George Thomas, saxophone. Gradually Nesbitt began writing special arrangements to replace the stock scores of numbers which had been used in the years past. These new scores gave some latitude for hot solos interlaced between the written passages. But he felt his way slowly, for at this point Nesbitt was the only member with an understanding of hot music. During these early months at the Graystone, Nesbitt struck up a close friendship with Bix Bciderbecke, who often played opposite him with the Goldkette band. Bix and John Nesbitt could usually be found together on or off the stand. Sometimes they would toss a baseball around in the alley back of the Arcadia Ball Room, and sometimes would join kids for sandlot ball games. This close friendship eventually drew the disapproval of Goldkette, who issued orders to both about not being seen together, but this had no effect. One favorite trick of theirs was to loosen bricks in the wall back of the Graystone and hide their bottles there while on the stand inside. Quite a few fine musicians, including Sterling Bose and Bill Rank, have told us that this friendship tended to influence the trumpet style of John Nesbitt, which at all times was very outstanding. Little Bix-like phrases and the same tone quality did turn up later on the Nesbitt solos on some of the Victor records. One day McKinney returned from a trip to announce that a triple threat man named Don Redman would join the band. Don was a superb saxophone player, a whimsical vocalist and a wizard at penning arrangements years ahead of their day. Redman was a driving mass of energy, literally bursting with new conceptions. He was a natural leader and became the spark-plug of the Cotton Pickers as he fired them on to new successes. Don Redman, in 1932. Until now music had been a careless sort of lark to the band, but Redman changed all this. He started drilling this bunch of musical illiterates. Austin recalls with delight: "Don had a blackboard and started right in teaching us fundamentals. He would put a note on the board and say: 'How many beats has this note?' Wilbourn would shout out, 'Two beats, Don'; someone else would holler, 'Aw man, you know that ain't right — that's got three beats' ; then all the rest would rise up a general hub-bub, all arguing and shouting and all the answers would be different until Don would restore order." Redman in time changed the Cotton Pickers from a stunt band into a hot organization that helped set the trend toward playing interesting arrangements that al lowed plenty of freedom for takeoff solos in the inner portions. He knew precisely the talent of each of his players and wrote not only to display the strong points but also to hide their weaknesses. His writings had variety and fascinating voicings, and all were played over a steady rhythm which never made itself obnoxiously intrusive. The gradual improvement was shown in such things as the mastering of Redman's ultra-fast tempos. In the beginning, at the rehearsals in the basement of the Graystone everyone would fail to keep the terrific pace. Notes would be skipped and one by one the men fell out and stopped playing. Cuba would continue to slash away, but frequently he would knock his cymbals off his drums in his frantic e*ffort to keep going. Sometimes even his snare would fly right off the back of the stand. But in 'time Redman molded them to his way. Cuba tells us it required countless sessions for nearly a year before they were able to maintain the swift pace consistently. But it took less time to become a magnet and to draw crowds to the Graystone. Goldkette had his own band at the Arcadia and, as Cuba explains it, at one point he put his outfit on the road rather than have a real showdown. For although his players were more polished, McKinney's had a showmanship that appealed especially to the Sunday afternoon shows attended on a bring-thewhole-family basis. Bands then played nightly for dancing, but also important was the show in which the band members doubled as singers, dancers, comedians or even acrobats. Each man in the McKinney group seemed to have some of these extra talents, so they scored a solid success. Cuba recalls an incident at one of the Sunday shows in this manner: "At the Graystone the relief band had a singer — never knew his full name, but we called him Dick. His specialty was // / Could Be With You One Hour and every week the crowd demanded him to sing it. But one time he didn't show up. Well, we as a band were always eager to cut any other's specialties, so right there we decided to try stealing it. Now, Fathead — that's what we called George Thomas — had been with us for a spell and although we had never heard him sing before, he said he'd try it the way Dick did. The band vamped for him and when he started to sing we looked at one another amazed, for he was very fine. When he finished the audience was cheering and stomping. Dick was furious at having his song stolen when he heard about it the next day. "Then later Don made a full arrangement of it that had a smooth trumpet solo by Joe Smith, with the end of the record having a double chorus by George Thomas and the band stabbing out in back of him. They really knew how to sell that number! Lots of bands stole it from us and Ben Pollack even made a record of it just like ours, but he told some of our boys once he played it that way as a tribute to us. He even had Tack Teagarden sing that double chorus like Fathead alwavs did. "After a while we went out on tour with Henderson and Ellington. We three bands moved along as a package deal over a circuit of dance halls all through the midwest. There was continuous dancing as one band followed the other on the stand. This was carlv in 1928. About then we swapped Tune Coles, who had been playing bass, for Bob Escudcro from Fletcher's band." Cuba paused in his story and started rooting through a desk drawer. At last he came up with a dirty crumpled envelope which he shoved towards us. Inside was a letter