How did call-and-response arrangements work in Fletcher Henderson’s and Benny Goodman’s orchestras?

In the orchestras of Fletcher Henderson and Benny Goodman, call-and-response was a foundational arranging technique used to create musical dialogue within a big band setting.12

Developed by Henderson’s musical director Don Redman in the 1920s, this approach organized the band into distinct instrumental choirs—primarily the brass section and the reed section. The arrangement functioned as a conversation: one section would play a musical phrase (the "call"), and the other section would immediately answer with a complementary phrase (the "response").123

This technique often utilized "riffs," which were simple, catchy musical phrases repeated throughout a piece. By playing these sections off against each other in dialogue or counterpoint, arrangers created a sophisticated, driving momentum that became a blueprint for the swing era. When Benny Goodman later purchased many of Henderson’s arrangements in the mid-1930s, he adopted this same structural approach, which became central to defining the signature sound of his own orchestra.132