"Cherokee" (also known as "Cherokee (Indian Love Song)") is a
jazz standard written by the British composer and band leader
Ray Noble and published in 1938. It is the first of five movements in Noble's "Indian Suite" (Cherokee, Comanche War Dance, Iroquois, Seminole, and Sioux Sue).
Structure
The composition has a 64-bar AABA construction.
The A-section harmony is straightforward by the standards of 1930s songs, but the B-section is more sophisticated.
This is because "it cadences (via ii-7–V7–I progressions) into the keys of B Major, A Major and G Major before moving toward the B tonic."
Recordings
"Cherokee" has been recorded over the years by many jazz musicians and singers.
Charlie Barnet
Charles Daly Barnet (October 26, 1913 – September 4, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.
His major recordings were "Skyliner", "Cherokee", "The Wrong Idea", "Scotch and Soda", "In a Mizz", and "Southland Shuffle ...
and His Orchestra's 1939 version reached No. 15 on the pop charts; he later re-recorded it in
Hi Fi stereo for
Everest Records
Everest Records was a record label based in Bayside, Long Island, started by Harry D. Belock and Bert Whyte in May 1958. It was devoted mainly to classical music.
History
The idea for starting a label was related by electronics inventor Harr ...
in 1958.
It was later recorded by
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
, the
Count Basie Orchestra
The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16 to 18 piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie in 1935 and recording regularly from 1936. Despite a brief disbandment at the beginning of the 19 ...
,
Duke Ellington,
Sarah Vaughan (1955),
Dakota Staton (1958),
Art Tatum
Arthur Tatum Jr. (, October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist who is widely regarded as one of the greatest in his field. From early in his career, Tatum's technical ability was regarded by fellow musicians as extraord ...
and
Keely Smith
Dorothy Jacqueline Keely (March 9, 1928The reference work ''The Encyclopedia of Native Music: More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet'' gives Smith's date of birth as March 9, 1932. – December 16, 2017), profession ...
.
The song has also been covered as an instrumental by
Biréli Lagrène
Biréli Lagrène (born 4 September 1966) is a French jazz guitarist who came to prominence in the 1980s for his Django Reinhardt–influenced style. He often performs in swing, jazz fusion, and post-bop styles.
Biography
Lagrène was born in ...
,
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell (September 27, 1924 – July 31, 1966) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Along with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke and Dizzy Gillespie, Powell was a leading figure in the development of modern j ...
(1950),
Clifford Brown
Clifford Benjamin Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car accident, leaving behind four years' worth of recordings. His compositions "Sandu", "Joy Spring", an ...
,
,
Stan Getz,
Lionel Hampton,
Harry James,
Christian McBride
Christian McBride (born May 31, 1972) is an American jazz bassist, composer and arranger. He has appeared on more than 300 recordings as a sideman, and is an eight-time Grammy Award winner.
McBride has performed and recorded with a number of j ...
,
Chet Atkins
Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music st ...
,
Kamasi Washington
Kamasi Washington (born February 18, 1981) is an American jazz saxophonist, usually playing tenor saxophone. Archived July 9, 2015.
Career
Washington was born in 1981 and raised in Los Angeles, California. He is a graduate of the Academy of ...
on his album
''The Epic'' (2015), and by
Johnny Smith
Johnny Henry Smith II (June 25, 1922 – June 11, 2013) was an American cool jazz and mainstream jazz guitarist. He wrote "Walk, Don't Run" in 1954. In 1984, Smith was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.
Early life
During the Great D ...
on his album ''
Moonlight in Vermont''.
The difficulty of improvising on the harmony of the B-section meant that many early soloists avoided improvising during it.
Influence
Charlie Parker used this song for the basis of his 1945 composition "
Ko-Ko".
While playing "Cherokee", he said that "I found that by using the
higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing." He had played that piece so many times that by the end he hated it, but he had mastered the chords perfectly in all 12 keys. "Ko-Ko" has a partially improvised head and the chords are based on "Cherokee".
[Reisner, Robert George. ''Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker'', Da Capo Press, page 103 – ]
It also formed the basis of
Buddy DeFranco
Boniface Ferdinand Leonard "Buddy" DeFranco (February 17, 1923 – December 24, 2014) was an Italian-American jazz clarinetist. In addition to his work as a bandleader, DeFranco led the Glenn Miller Orchestra for almost a decade in the 1960s and ...
"Swinging the Indian".
A vocalese version (different tune, but based on the same chord sequence), with its own lyrics, was written by Richie Cole and David Lahm in 1983 and is called "Harold's House of Jazz".
Appearances in films
The song was used in ''
Jam Session
A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without ext ...
'' (1944), ''
Jasper in a Jam
''Jasper in a Jam'' is a 1946 short film in the ''Puppetoons'' series produced and originated by George Pal. It starred the voice of singer Peggy Lee, and was directed by Duke Goldstone and released by Paramount Pictures. It is included in ''T ...
'' (1946), sung by
Peggy Lee, ''
The Gene Krupa Story
''The Gene Krupa Story'' (also known as ''Drum Crazy'') is a 1959 biopic of American drummer and bandleader Gene Krupa. The conflict in the film centers on Krupa's rise to success and his corresponding use of marijuana.
Plot synopsis
The young ...
'' (1959), and as background music in ''
Racing with the Moon
''Racing with the Moon'' is a 1984 American drama film starring Sean Penn, Elizabeth McGovern, and Nicolas Cage. It was directed by Richard Benjamin and written by Steve Kloves. The original music score was composed by Dave Grusin.
The film's ti ...
'' (1984) and ''Lush Life'' (1993), a
TV movie
A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...
starring
Jeff Goldblum and
Kathy Baker
}
Katherine Whitton Baker (born June 8, 1950) is an American actress. Baker began her career in theater and made her screen debut in the 1983 drama film '' The Right Stuff''. She received the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Suppo ...
.
It was the tune the prisoners played in an attempt to bring down an avalanche in the next-to-last episode of ''
Hogan's Heroes''.
See also
*
List of 1930s jazz standards
References
{{authority control
1930s jazz standards
1938 songs
Jazz compositions in B-flat major
Jazz songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Songs written by Ray Noble