#2436: Caravan Variations
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 |
|
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 |
|
Jon Hassell |
Fascinoma |
Caravanesque [7:00] |
Water Lily Acoustics #70 |
|
Fanfare Ciocarlia |
Gili Garabdi |
Caravan [4:30] |
Asphalt Tango#0605 |
|
Rabih Abou-Khalil |
Roots & Sprouts |
Caravan [5:30] |
MMP/Enja #170890 |
|
Kalman Balogh & The Gipsy Cimbalom Band |
Aroma |
Caravan [3:30] |
Folk europa #007 |
|
Various artists: The Roots |
Red Hot + Indigo |
Caravan [5:30] |
The Red Hot Organization 13-IND |
|
Hepcat |
Out of Nowhere |
Caravan (Skaravan) [3:00] |
Moon #032** Out of print, but re-released on Epitaph Records in 2004. store.epitaph.com |
|
Brian Setzer Orchestra |
Vavoom! |
Caravan [2:00] |
Interscope #064907332** |
