MOOD INDIGO

Created on 04/10/2001
Latest update on 11/03/2024

Artist: Harlem Footwarmers
Author: Duke Ellington/Barney Bigard/Irving Mills
Label: Okeh
Year: 1930

Name of the Duke Ellington orchestra while recording for Okeh. They were The Jungle Band for Brunswick and Duke Ellington & his Cotton Club Orchestra for Victor. That's when it hit. Three versions with three different line-ups. Original title: Dreamy Blues. Theme: Barney Bigard, lyrics: Mitchell Parish, credits: Irving Mills (Parish stood on his pay roll). This sort of arrangement enabled Duke Ellington to free jazz from its dance function. Some elements might as well come from Ravel or Stravinsky. There's a similar muted trumpet and trombone at the beginning of part two of Le Sacre du printemps.

Covers:

1933:

Boswell Sisters

1934:

Jimmie Lunceford

1934:

Billy Cotton

1937:

Paul Robeson

1954:

Norman Petty Trio

1954:

Billy Eckstine

1954:

Four Freshmen

1955:

Perez Prado

1955:

Frank Sinatra [on In The Wee Small Hours]

1957:

Ella Fitzgerald

1958:

Nina Simone

1960:

Ames Brothers

1960:

Henry Mancini

1961:

Louis Armstrong [with Duke]

1961:

Floyd Cramer

1977:

Mike Bloomfield

1978:

Lenny Carlson [with Ry Cooder]

1984:

John Barry [in film The Cotton Club]

1988:

Patti Austin

1994:

Pasadena Roof Orch.

2000:

Dr. John

2000:

Joe Jackson

2001:

Jimmy Smith

2012:

Joe Jackson

2014:

Annie Lennox

2023:

Taj Mahal

Asked what Mood Indigo means, Ellington once clarified it's the story of a boy and a girl, loving each other without even knowing it.

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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