Rifftides reader Peter Luce has a question:
I’m wondering if someone in Rifftides’ knowledgeable readership can help clarify some conflicting information I’ve read about Ellington’s used of trumpet, trombone and clarinet in the original recording of “Mood Indigo.” John Edward Hasse, in The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington, writes:
“Ellington turned on their heads the usual roles of trombone, trumpet and clarinet, assigning the trombone the high notes and the clarinet the low.”
Alyn Shipton in A New History of Jazz writes:
“Whereas in the traditional order of things, the clarinet would take the upper part, the trombone the lower, with the trumpet in the middle, [Ellington] assigned the highest notes to the muted trumpet, the central part to a muted high-register trombone, and the lowest notes to a clarinet in its deep chalumeau register.”
Both of these jazz historians agree that the clarinet was assigned the low parts, but clearly disagree on the trumpet and trombone. Can any of your readers shed any light?
We have in the audience arrangers, composers, musicologists and other listeners with big ears. Click the link above, listen, send your answers to Mr. Luce’s query and we will post them.
Wonderful question…I think Duke head-fakes us on the instrumentation with his solos. The second voice is definitely trombone with a pixie mute & plunger (pixie mute is a small straight mute that went all the way in the bell so it could be used in conjunction with a plunger). The bottom voice…I’m going to guess it’s not the same clarinetist who’s soloing (Bigard? Is this pre-Procope?), in fact I think it’s Harry Carney on bass clarinet. I’ve seen films of him play the ensemble part on Indigo before and it doesn’t have the same timbre as the soloist. The top voice is a killer – it’s definitely not the trumpet soloist. The timbre, articulation and vibrato are different – it’s really high (double F) for a bone and it doesn’t sound that forced, so I’m going to vote either for another trumpeter with his own pixie mute/plunger OR…an alto player playing really straight (the vibrato and articulation in the first statement makes me say that’s an option). Ellington used to switch the instrumentation of each voice around a lot through the years, so it’s a killer to figure it out without a scorecard!
Shipton’s description of Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” voicing is correct.
Earlier today, I didn’t listen to the link Peter Luce provided, because I’ve known the original October 17, 1930 recording of “Mood Indigo” (aka “Dreamy Blues”) very well for years. That one is a septet version with Arthur Whetsol on trumpet, Tricky Sam Nanton on trombone, and Barney Bigard on clarinet. Duke’s unique voicings fall within the comfortable ranges of those three horns, with Bigard on the bottom. It’s that recording that Alyn Shipton accurately refers to.
I still haven’t listened to the link Mr. Luce provided, because the linked website has a User Licensing Agreement that’s far too baroque for my comfort. But the Ellington CD cover provided on the site is of a recent Verve reissue compilation, and Ellington didn’t record for Verve until the mid-1960s. By that time, Duke had changed the three-horn instrumentation of “MI” repeatedly, including often using Harry Carney on bass clarinet as the bottom voice, as Mr. Deemer mentions.
Thanks to Rob Deemer and Bill Kirchner for their response to my question. In response to Bill’s second comment, yes, the Hasse and Shipton quotes refer to the original October 17, 1930 recording of Mood Indigo. I don’t know how many voicing changes Ellington made to Indigo over the years, but that’s what makes listening to him so fascinating.