McKinney's Cotton Pickers
E564429
McKinney's Cotton Pickers was an influential late-1920s and early-1930s African American jazz and dance band known for its sophisticated arrangements and key role in the development of big band swing.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| McKinney's Cotton Pickers canonical | 5 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6027865 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: McKinney's Cotton Pickers Context triple: [Don Redman, memberOf, McKinney's Cotton Pickers]
-
A.
Deep in the Heart of Texas
Deep in the Heart of Texas is a stand-up comedy special by Dave Chappelle, filmed in Austin and released on Netflix.
-
B.
Shotgun Willie
Shotgun Willie is a 1973 country album by Willie Nelson that marked a creative turning point in his career and helped launch the outlaw country movement.
-
C.
Cotton Pickin’ Fair
Cotton Pickin’ Fair is a long-running Southern arts, crafts, and heritage festival held in Gay, Georgia, celebrating rural culture and community traditions.
-
D.
Missin’ Missippi
"Missin’ Missippi" is a song featured on the album *Songs Cycled* by Van Dyke Parks.
-
E.
Southern Man
"Southern Man" is a Neil Young song that sharply criticizes racism and the legacy of slavery in the American South.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: McKinney's Cotton Pickers Target entity description: McKinney's Cotton Pickers was an influential late-1920s and early-1930s African American jazz and dance band known for its sophisticated arrangements and key role in the development of big band swing.
-
A.
Deep in the Heart of Texas
Deep in the Heart of Texas is a stand-up comedy special by Dave Chappelle, filmed in Austin and released on Netflix.
-
B.
Shotgun Willie
Shotgun Willie is a 1973 country album by Willie Nelson that marked a creative turning point in his career and helped launch the outlaw country movement.
-
C.
Cotton Pickin’ Fair
Cotton Pickin’ Fair is a long-running Southern arts, crafts, and heritage festival held in Gay, Georgia, celebrating rural culture and community traditions.
-
D.
Missin’ Missippi
"Missin’ Missippi" is a song featured on the album *Songs Cycled* by Van Dyke Parks.
-
E.
Southern Man
"Southern Man" is a Neil Young song that sharply criticizes racism and the legacy of slavery in the American South.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
African American musical ensemble
ⓘ
jazz band ⓘ |
| activePeriodEnd | mid-1930s ⓘ |
| activePeriodStart | 1926 ⓘ |
| associatedWith | Fletcher Henderson style arrangements ⓘ |
| basedIn | Detroit ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| ethnicBackground | African American ⓘ |
| foundedBy | William McKinney ⓘ |
| genre |
dance band music
ⓘ
jazz ⓘ swing ⓘ |
| hasMember |
Benny Carter
ⓘ
Claude Jones ⓘ Coleman Hawkins ⓘ Doc Cheatham ⓘ Don Redman ⓘ Fats Waller ⓘ George Thomas ⓘ James P. Johnson ⓘ Prince Robinson ⓘ Rex Stewart ⓘ William McKinney ⓘ |
| historicalSignificance |
helped bridge small-group jazz and later swing-era big bands
ⓘ
one of the first important African American big bands to record extensively ⓘ |
| influenced | later swing bands ⓘ |
| influencedGenre | big band swing ⓘ |
| musicalDirector | Don Redman ⓘ |
| notableEra |
early 1930s
ⓘ
late 1920s ⓘ |
| notableFor |
role in development of big band swing
ⓘ
sophisticated arrangements ⓘ tight ensemble playing ⓘ |
| notableRecording |
“Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home”
ⓘ
linked to:
"Baby Won't You Please Come Home"
“I Found a New Baby” ⓘ “If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight” ⓘ
linked to:
If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)
“Milenberg Joys” ⓘ |
| performanceType |
ballroom dance music
ⓘ
recording sessions ⓘ |
| recordLabel |
RCA Victor
ⓘ
Victor Records ⓘ |
| roleOfMember |
Don Redman was arranger and saxophonist
ⓘ
William McKinney was the bandleader and drummer ⓘ |
| styleCharacteristic |
arranged breaks and solos
ⓘ
call-and-response brass and reeds ⓘ complex ensemble voicings ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: McKinney's Cotton Pickers Description of subject: McKinney's Cotton Pickers was an influential late-1920s and early-1930s African American jazz and dance band known for its sophisticated arrangements and key role in the development of big band swing.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.