“Cherokee” | Stories of Standards

Tune in to First Take with Lando and Chavis – weekdays from 6-9 am MT – for Stories of Standards to hear our favorite versions of this song all week long!

 

“Cherokee” (1938) was written by Ray Noble as the first of five movements of the “Indian Suite” (Cherokee, Comanche War Dance, Iroquois, Seminole and Sioux Sue). A year later Billy May’s arrangement for Charlie Barnet’s band established Cherokee as a major swing hit which was later extended and renamed “Redskin Rhumba”, becoming Barnet’s theme song. Charlie Parker’s performances in the early 1940s established it as a vehicle for rapid improvisational solos.

 

Ray Noble (1903-1978) became band director/pianist for the BBC Dance Orchestra when he was 21 and was staff arranger for HMV Records within a year. In 1934 he was invited to appear in the Rainbow Room of the RCA Building in New York along with his lead singer Al Bowlly. The band he led in the US included Glenn Miller (a devoted fan who had gathered the other performers for the band), Claude Thornhill, Charlie Spivak and Bud Freeman, among others. After breaking up the band in 1937 he went to Hollywood, where he further developed his comedic persona (upper-class English twit) and went on to appear in movies and performances with Burns & Allen and Edgar Bergen. His first song “Goodnight, Sweetheart” (1931) is still popular and he created the jazz standards of “The Very Thought of You” (1934), “The Touch of Your Lips” (1936), “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You” (1938), and “Cherokee” (1938).