Caravan

"Caravan" opens with a low, prowling melody that circles over a steady, insistent rhythm, an effect meant to conjure camels swaying across sand at night. The tune's minor-key color and the way it never quite resolves give it its exotic, restless feel.

A middle section lightens the mood briefly, moving to a brighter, more open melodic idea before the opening figure returns, now often dressed up with fuller brass and reed harmonies than the original small-group version.

When performed with an orchestra and a vocalist, as in these upcoming concerts, the singer typically carries the melody through the verses while the band supplies the rolling rhythmic bed underneath, and there is usually room for a short instrumental solo, trumpet or saxophone, before the final chorus returns to close things out.

Listen for the recurring bass and drum pattern that never really stops, it's the "engine" of the piece, the thing that makes it feel like continuous motion rather than a tune with a beginning and end. That sense of ongoing travel, more than any grand climax, is the point of the piece.

"Caravan" dates from the mid-1930s and grew out of Duke Ellington's long-running collaboration with his valve trombonist Juan Tizol, who is credited alongside Ellington as a composer. Tizol brought a knack for minor-key, vaguely "exotic" melodies to the Ellington orchestra, and this tune became one of the era's most recognizable products of that partnership. It was quickly picked up by other bands and singers, and lyrics were later added, turning the instrumental into a vocal standard as well. Over the following decades it became a fixture of the jazz repertoire, recorded by countless artists in styles ranging from big band to Latin jazz. Its steady, ongoing rhythm and dusky melody made it a natural for orchestral pops arrangements, and it continues to appear on symphony programs paired with vocalists, as in the concerts below.