7 Fletcher Henderson 7in 1924 when Henderson hired the young trumpeter Louis
Armstrong. At about the same time, the band’s musical
director and alto saxophonist, Don Redman, conceived the
arrangements and instrumentation that would become
the standard for big bands. The rhythm section was estab-
lished as piano, bass, guitar, and drums; and the trumpet,
trombone, and reed sections composed the front line.
Arrangements were constructed in the call-and-response
manner (e.g., the brass section “calls,” the reed section
“responds”), and many tunes were based upon “riffs,” iden-
tifiable musical passages repeated throughout the song.
Henderson was a superb arranger but a poor business-
man. Although the band had played major venues and
been heard on the radio and in recordings, the band’s
finances were frequently in disarray, and musicians often
left without notice to join other bands. He nevertheless
managed to keep his band going until the mid-1930s, at
which time he sold many of his arrangements to Benny
Goodman, who used them to define the sound of his new
band. “King Porter Stomp,” “Down South Camp Meetin’,”
“Bugle Call Rag,” “Sometimes I’m Happy,” and “Wrappin’
It Up” are among the Henderson arrangements that
became Goodman hits.
Through the Goodman band, Henderson’s arrange-
ments became a blueprint for the sound of the swing era.
Henderson arranged for Goodman for several years and
formed a short-lived band of his own in 1936. That year,
Henderson issued “Christopher Columbus,” which became
the biggest hit released under his own name. Henderson
had little success in his subsequent attempts to organize
bands and spent most of the 1940s arranging for Goodman,
Count Basie, and others. He formed a sextet in 1950 that
became the house band at New York’s Cafe Society, but he
suffered a stroke soon thereafter and was forced to retire.