ELLA FITZEGERALD & DUKE ELLINGTON - IT DON'T MEANE A THING

IT DON’T MEAN A THING

ELLA FITZGERALD & DUKE ELLINGTON

SONGWRITERS: DUKE ELLINGTON & IRVING MILLS

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: ELLA AND DUKE AT CÔTE D’AZUR

LABEL: VERVE RECORDS

GENRE: JAZZ

YEAR: 1967

 

          Ella and Duke at the Cote D'Azur is a 1967 live album by Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by the big band of Duke Ellington.

          It was recorded live at the Jazz à Juan festival at Juan-les-Pins, on the French Riviera, between June 26 and July 29, 1966. Earlier in the year, Fitzgerald and Ellington had recorded their only other live album together, The Stockholm Concert, 1966, in Stockholm.

          The album was released as a double-LP in 1967. In 1998, Verve Records released the concert on compact disc, in both a two-CD version and a complete eight-CD version.

           "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" is a 1931 composition by Duke Ellington with lyrics by Irving Mills. It is now accepted as a jazz standard, and jazz historian Gunther Schuller characterized it as "now legendary" and "a prophetic piece and a prophetic title". In 2008, Ellington's 1932 recording of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame

      The music was composed and arranged by Ellington in August 1931 during intermissions at the Lincoln Tavern in Chicago and was first recorded by Ellington and his orchestra for Brunswick Records on February 2, 1932. After Mills wrote the lyrics, Ivie Anderson sang the vocal and trombonist Joe Nanton and alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges played the solos. The song became famous, Ellington wrote, "as the expression of a sentiment which prevailed among jazz musicians at the time". Ellington credited the saying as a credo of trumpeter Bubber Miley, who was dying of tuberculosis at the time; Miley died the year the song was released. The Ellington band recorded it numerous times, most often with trumpeter Ray Nance as vocalist.

It don't mean a thing

If it ain't got that swing

(Doo wah, doo wah, doo wah, doo wah)

(Doo wah, doo wah, doo wah, doo wah)

 

It don't mean a thing

All you got to do is sing

(Doo wah, doo wah, doo wah, doo wah)

(Doo wah, doo wah, doo wah, doo wah)

 

It makes no diff'rence

If it's sweet or hot

Just give that rhythm

Ev'rything you got

 

Oh, it don't mean a thing

If it ain't got that swing

(Doo wah, doo wah, doo wah, doo wah)

(Doo wah, doo wah, doo wah, doo wah).