#2436: Caravan Variations

New Sounds | May 24, 2010
Like camels slogging through the sand, the exotic strains of “Caravan,” by Duke Ellington and his sometime trombonist Juan Tizol (with rarely heard lyrics by Irving Mills), have been played loose, fast, swinging, and/or slow by just about everyone. For this New Sounds program, it’s another of the occasional series of programs of Theme and Variations, where the premise is simple: take a single piece of music and explore what a number of musicians have done with it, through arrangements, deconstructions, and revisions of the original theme. This time around, it’s Duke Ellington’s “Caravan.” Listen to arrangements by Romania’s Fanfare Ciocarlia, Hungary’s Kalman Balogh & The Gipsy Cimbalom Band, the California Guitar Trio, the ska group Hepcat, banjoman Bela Fleck, Lebanese composer Rabih Abou-Khalil, and trumpeter/composer Jon Hassell, among others.

PROGRAM # 2436, Theme & Variations : Caravan (First aired on Fri. 7/8/05)

ARTIST(S)

RECORDING

CUT(S)

SOURCE

Duke Ellington

The Complete RCA Victor Mid-Forties Recordings (1944-1946)

Caravan, excerpt [1:30]

RCA #63394
Available for purchase at Amazon.com* or download from iTunes

Vic Wooten

Live, BAM 11/26/96

Caravan [1:00]

Not commercially available.

Bela Fleck & the Flecktones

Live, New Sounds, 12/01/92

Caravan [4:00]

Not commercially available. Fleck’s CDs are readily available in stores and online.

California Guitar Trio

With Tony Levin

Caravan [4:00]

Pepe Paldo #9001
www.cgtrio.com*

Jon Hassell

Fascinoma

Caravanesque [7:00]

Water Lily Acoustics #70
www.waterlilyacoustics.com

Fanfare Ciocarlia

Gili Garabdi

Caravan [4:30]

Asphalt Tango#0605
www.asphalt-tango.de

Rabih Abou-Khalil

Roots & Sprouts

Caravan [5:30]

MMP/Enja #170890
www.enjarecords.com

Kalman Balogh & The Gipsy Cimbalom Band

Aroma

Caravan [3:30]

Folk europa #007
folkeuro@axelero.hu

Various artists: The Roots

Red Hot + Indigo

Caravan [5:30]

The Red Hot Organization 13-IND
www.redhot.org

Hepcat

Out of Nowhere

Caravan (Skaravan) [3:00]

Moon #032** Out of print, but re-released on Epitaph Records in 2004. store.epitaph.com
 More info about the band at
www.iration.com/hepcat

Brian Setzer Orchestra

Vavoom!

Caravan [2:00]

Interscope #064907332**
www.briansetzer.com*


*, ** - Find the recordings you've heard - go to the New Sounds Recordings Information page

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