Charlie Barnet: Cherokee

In becoming a bandleader, millionaire playboy Charlie Barnet defied his family but wound up making more money than as the white-shoe lawyer they'd have preferred. His biggest hit, "Cherokee," would serve as the basis for bebopper Charlie Parkers Ko Ko (1945), but otherwise holds scant historical interest. Evidently meant to evoke the largest Native American tribe through hokey wah-wah and tom-tom effects that were beneath even Hollywood's casual indignity, Billy May's arrangement is little more than tedious commercialism, unredeemed by Barnet's dilettantish saxophone. 1939 was among jazz's greatest years, crammed with classic recordings. "Cherokee" ain't one of them. Don't waste your wampum.