Solitude (song)

(In My) Solitude is a jazz - Composition of 1934 by Duke Ellington . The rights for the later written text belong to Irving Mills and Eddie DeLange .

The title

A gospel mood echoes in the composition, which has a predominantly major character . The ballad is structured according to the AA'BA scheme and combines a lyrical, folkloric style with simple, straight-line harmonies. However, the tonic is neither the start nor the end point of the song.

History of origin

"Solitude" was created at the same time as Ellington classics such as " In a Sentimental Mood " or "Ebony Rhapsody" in early 1934 and was probably written on the fly to meet the requirements of a recording session for records, as Ellington's biographer JL Collier suspects . He quotes the band leader: "I was a bit too short, and I wrote it in twenty minutes while standing against a glass wall in the RCA Victor studio in Chicago ." Though the first photograph shows a little of the rush of preparation, realized Irving Mills the Potential of the title and had a text written for it. The record became a huge hit for the Duke Ellington Orchestra and its most successful track of the time.

Impact history

"Solitude" was recorded many times by Ellington, but it was not until 1940 in a vocal version (with Ivie Anderson ) after there were already several sung versions of the ballad. Billie Holiday recorded the song at the same time, accompanied by Roy Eldridge . Billy Eckstine , Ella Fitzgerald , Etta James , Nina Simone , Helen Humes and many other singers have interpreted "Solitude". The instrumental versions by Ruby Braff , Johnny Hodges (1951), Thelonious Monk (1955), Sonny Rollins ( Way Out West , 1957) and the recordings by Ellington with Charles Mingus and Max Roach ( Money Jungle , 1963) and by Jimmy Rowles ( Plays Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn , 1981) deserve special mention. Hundreds of thousands of sheet music from it have been sold, and it is one of the classic American songs of the twentieth century.

literature

James Lincoln Collier : Duke Ellington. Genius of jazz . Revised edition. Ullstein, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-548-35839-X ( Ullstein 35839).
Hans Ruland : Duke Ellington. His life, his music, his records . Oreos, Gauting-Buchendorf 1983, ISBN 3-923657-03-X ( Collection Jazz 2).

Web links

Remarks

↑ Collier is critical of the importance of Ellington as the “composer” of many of the works he and his orchestra play and comes to the conclusion that “Solitude” is one of the few songs that were only composed by Ellington and that are not based on the ideas of his musicians.

[1] Collier is critical of the importance of Ellington as the “composer” of many of the works he and his orchestra play and comes to the conclusion that “Solitude” is one of the few songs that were only composed by Ellington and that are not based on the ideas of his musicians.