Very Special

Duke Ellington (piano), Charles Mingus (doble bass) and Max Roach (drums). From the album Money Jungle (1963).

In 1936, when the swing was at its peak, Ellington recorded little and without success. He made a series of chamber recordings and combo sessions, until in 1937 he gathered his big band again. His greatest success was “Caravan”, an exotic theme with modal implications. However, Ellington’s big band was about to begin its brightest period, which would last until the suspension of recordings during World War II. From 1938 to 1942 the band produced a series of masterpieces thanks to the incorporation of Billy Strayhorn, Jimmy Blanton and Ben Webster.

Ellington became interested in mid-tempo swing arrangements that were in vogue at the time and demonstrated his ability to arouse deep emotions with simple resources. Despite these incursions into pure swing, Ellington continued to develop his personal style. The band was giving good results and Ellington incorporated different stylistic resources in his works without breaking their cohesion.

This theme is a blues that Ellington performs with mastery at medium-fast tempo. He begins his solo with simple phrases mixing them with the chords while Mingus makes his own solo underneath until he introduces walking. Roach supports the other two musicians with skill. Ellington’s speech sounds quite traditional, but uses unusual resources with repetitive phrases and introduces a new melody in each chorus until he re-exposes the theme.