Cherokee

"Cherokee" is a 1938 song by the English bandleader Ray Noble, best known in jazz as the fast tune on which Charlie Parker built his bebop vocabulary. This page has the Cherokee chords and a backing track you can slow down, speed up and transpose.

Who wrote "Cherokee"

Ray Noble wrote the music and the lyrics in 1938; it was the first part of his Indian Suite. It has words, but in jazz it is almost always played as an instrumental. Noble's own orchestra recorded it in 1938, and Charlie Barnet's recording of 1939 made it a swing-era hit and his theme song.

Recordings that made it a standard

• Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra (1939) — the hit version, a big-band arrangement by Billy May.
• Charlie Parker, "Ko-Ko" (1945) — a new melody on the changes, with Dizzy Gillespie, played at breakneck speed; one of the founding records of bebop.
• Clifford Brown and Max Roach, Study in Brown (1955) — a fast quintet version with a famous trumpet solo.
• Bud Powell, Jazz Giant (1950) — a solo-piano and trio approach at high speed.