Live In The Sixties

But his was not the first big band and not the first swing band. There had been big bands around for some years and included the Paul Whiteman Orchestra which numbered more than fifty musicians in its concert performances. The accent was on the concert aspect of music but the orchestra was reduced to a more manageable dozen or so musicians to perform arrangements that are easily recognisable as "swing". There was also the Jean Goldkette Orchestra that was a smaller unit that played mainly for dancing but included several jazz men in its personnel and featured swinging arrangements. Goldkette also acted as an agent providing orchestras for engagements at venues around his base in Detroit and one of these, The Orange Blossoms Orchestra went on to become The Casa Loma Orchestra, one of the bands that played many hot swing arrangements. Then there were also the Negro bands such as Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra, McKinney's Cotton Pickers, Duke Ellington's Orchestra and, the pioneering Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. The Henderson Orchestra consistently outplayed other orchestras in the battle-of-the-bands contests that were popular at the time. But Henderson, while capable of recruiting the best soloists and writing the best arrangements was not a good manager and his band constantly struggled to find employment, especially at the more lucrative venues.