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McKinney's Cotton Pickers were an American jazz band, founded in Detroit, Michigan, United States in 1926, and led by Bill McKinney, who expanded his Synco Septet to ten players. Cuba Austin took over for McKinney on drums, with the latter becoming the band's manager. Between 1927 and 1931, they were one of the most popular African American bands. Many of their records for Victor were bestsellers. In 1927, Fletcher Henderson's arranger and saxophone player Don Redman was invited to become the Cotton Pickers' musical director and he assembled a band. John Nesbitt helped Redman with arrangements and rehearsals. The band in 1928 included Cuba Austin, Langston Curl, Ralph Escudero, Claude Jones, Redman, Todd Rhodes, Prince Robinson, Milton Senior, George Thomas and Dave Wilborn. Other band members included George Bias, Benny Carter, Doc Cheatham, Bill Coti, Ed Cuffee, Lois Deppe, Jimmy Dudley, Robert Inge From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinne...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)
