"Caravan" is an American

jazz standard Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive List ...

by Juan Tizol and

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D ...

, first performed by Ellington in 1936.

Irving Mills Irving Harold Mills (born Isadore Minsky; January 18, 1894 Odessa, Ukraine – April 21, 1985) was a music publisher, musician, lyricist, and jazz promoter. He often used the pseudonyms Goody Goodwin and Joe Primrose. Personal life Mills ...

wrote lyrics, but they are rarely sung. The song has regained popularity since being featured prominently in the 2014 film '' Whiplash''.

Original recording

The first version of the song was recorded in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

in 1936 and performed as an instrumental by Barney Bigard and His Jazzopators. Two takes were recorded, of which the first (Variety VA-515-1) was published. The band members were: *

Cootie Williams Charles Melvin "Cootie" Williams (July 10, 1911 – September 15, 1985) was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter. Biography Born in Mobile, Alabama, Williams began his professional career at the age of 14 with the Yo ...

– trumpet * Juan Tizol – trombone *

Barney Bigard Albany Leon "Barney" Bigard (March 3, 1906 – June 27, 1980) was an American jazz clarinetist known for his 15-year tenure with Duke Ellington. He also played tenor saxophone. Biography Bigard was born in New Orleans to Creoles of color, Cr ...

– clarinet *

Harry Carney Harry Howell Carney (April 1, 1910 – October 8, 1974) was a jazz saxophonist and clarinettist who spent over four decades as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. He played a variety of instruments, but primarily used the baritone saxophon ...

– baritone saxophone *

– piano * Billy Taylor – double bass * Sonny Greer – drums The musicians were members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, which often split into smaller combinations to record songs under different band names. For this recording, which included Ellington and Tizol as performers, the nominal session band leader was Bigard. As of 2024 this is the most covered song in history, with over 500 versions published.

Other versions

The sound of "Caravan" appealed to

exotica Exotica is a musical genre that was popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s with Americans who came of age during World War II. The term was coined by Simon "Si" Waronker, Liberty Records co-founder and board chairman, named after the 1957 Mart ...

musicians; Martin Denny,

Arthur Lyman Arthur Hunt Lyman (February 2, 1932 – February 24, 2002) was a Hawaiian jazz vibraphone and marimba player. His group popularized a style of faux-Polynesian music during the 1950s and 1960s which later became known as exotica. His albums ...

and Gordon Jenkins all covered it. The

Mills Brothers The Mills Brothers, sometimes billed The Four Mills Brothers and originally known as Four Boys and a Guitar, were an American jazz and traditional pop vocal quartet who made more than 2,000 recordings that sold more than 50 million copies and g ...

recorded an

a cappella Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...

version of the song. More than 350 versions have been recorded. *

– New York, May 14, 1937 * Valaida Snow – Valaida Snow (vocal and trumpet) and her Orchestra, 1939, Sonora *

Art Tatum Arthur Tatum Jr. (, October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist who is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever. From early in his career, fellow musicians acclaimed Tatum's technical ability as extraordinary. Tatum a ...

– Los Angeles, April–July 1940 *

Billy Eckstine William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was an American jazz and pop singer and a bandleader during the swing and bebop eras. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. In 2019, Eckstine was posthumously a ...

- 1949 *

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy El ...

– October 25, 1951 * Roy Clark – Third episode of Hee Haw, 1969 *

Chet Atkins Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), also known as "Mister Guitar" and "the Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson (musician), Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nash ...

- '' A Session with Chet Atkins'', 1954 *

Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk ( October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the Jazz standard, standard jazz repertoire, includ ...

– '' Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington'', Hackensack, New Jersey, July 27, 1955 *

Nat King Cole Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, alternatively billed as Nat "King" Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's career as a jazz and Traditional pop, pop ...

– '' After Midnight'', Los Angeles, September 14, 1956 * Santo & Johnny's – ''

Santo & Johnny Santo & Johnny were an American rock and roll instrumental duo of Italian descent from Brooklyn, New York, composed of brothers Santo Farina (born October 24, 1937) and Johnny Farina (born April 30, 1941). They are known best for their instrum ...

'' (1959), peaked at number 48 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart *

Bobby Darin Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto; May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973) was an American singer, songwriter, and actor who performed Pop music, pop, Swing music, swing, Folk music, folk, rock and roll, and country music. Darin started ...

on This is Darin 1959 (rec) 1960 (rel) *

Art Blakey Arthur Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he converted to Islam for a short time in the late 1940s. Blakey made a name for himself in the 1 ...

and the Jazz Messengers – '' Caravan'', New York, October 23, 1962 *

Wes Montgomery John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery (March 6, 1923 – June 15, 1968) was an American jazz guitarist. Montgomery was known for his unusual technique of plucking the strings with the side of his thumb and for his extensive use of octaves, which gave him a ...

– '' Movin' Wes'', New York, November 16, 1964 * Dizzy Gillespie and

Oscar Peterson Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. As a virtuoso who is considered to be one of the greatest Jazz piano, jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordin ...

– '' Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie'', London, November 28–29, 1974 *

Les Paul Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009), known as Les Paul, was an American jazz guitarist, jazz, country guitarist, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the solid body ...

– '' Chester and Lester'', May 6–7, 1975 *

Art Pepper Arthur Edward Pepper Jr. (September 1, 1925 – June 15, 1982) was an American jazz musician, most known as an alto saxophonist. He occasionally performed and recorded on tenor saxophone, clarinet (his first instrument) and bass clarinet. Active ...

– '' Friday Night at the Village Vanguard'', New York, July 29, 1977 * Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, a live version (credited as "From the motion picture ''Men Without Women'' "),

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph record, vinyl records and Compact cassette, cassettes, and the terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side of a Single (music), single usually ...

of the "Forever" single, 1982 * Wynton Marsalis – '' Marsalis Standard Time, Vol. I'', New York, May 29–30, 1986 and September 24–25, 1986 * Medeski Martin & Wood – '' Notes from the Underground'', New York, December 15–16, 1991 * Michel Camilo – '' Rendezvous'', New York, January 18–20, 1993 *

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

on their 1995 album Night & Day: Big Band *

Dee Dee Bridgewater Dee Dee Bridgewater (née Denise Garrett, May 27, 1950) is an American jazz singer and actress. She is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award-winning stage actress. For 23 years, she was the host of National ...

– '' Prelude To A Kiss: The Duke Ellington Album'', a 1996 vocal rendition of the song, with a Mideastern and African percussion setting * Fanfare Ciocărlia - '' Gili Garabdi'', 2005 * Hiromi's Sonicbloom - '' Beyond Standard'', 2008

In popular culture

Woody Allen Heywood Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many List of awards and nominations received by Woody Allen, accolade ...

used the song in two of his films, ''

Alice Alice may refer to: * Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname Literature * Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll * ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...

'' and '' Sweet and Lowdown''. The song is featured on

Rachel Portman Rachel Mary Berkeley Portman (born 11 December 1960)), a collection of original pieces for piano, violin and cello, with Portman playing the piano. In 2023 she released a second album ''Beyond the Screen – Film Works on Piano'' which features ...

’s soundtrack for the 2000 film '' Chocolat''.

Steven Soderbergh Steven Andrew Soderbergh ( ; born January 14, 1963) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. A pioneer of modern Independent film, independent cinema, Soderbergh later drew acclaim for formally inventiv ...

used the Lyman version in his 2001 film ''

Ocean's Eleven ''Ocean's Eleven'' is a 2001 heist comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Ted Griffin. A remake of the 1960 film of the same name, it serves as the first installment in the ''Ocean's'' franchise. The film features an ense ...

''. The song is featured prominently in the 2014 film '' Whiplash'' as an important plot element. The arrangement heard in the film is by John Wasson. A horn sample from the Romanian cover version by Fanfare Ciocărlia was used in the song " We No Speak Americano" by Yolanda Be Cool. Wu Bai used aspects of the song in his ''Crush on You (煞到妳)''. The Brian Setzer Orchestra version was used in

The Sopranos ''The Sopranos'' is an American Crime film#Crime drama, crime drama television series created by David Chase. The series follows Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey American Mafia, Mafia boss who suffers from panic attacks. He reluct ...

episode "The Second Coming". The track "You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here", from the

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestra ...

and

The Mothers of Invention The Mothers of Invention (also known as the Mothers) were an American rock music, rock band from California. Formed in 1964, their work is marked by the use of sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Originally an ...

debut album " Freak Out!", features the comedic line: "I wanna hear Caravan with a drum sola!", mimicking what a drunk patron might yell at the band as a request.

External links and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caravan (Song) 1936 songs 1936 singles Songs with music by Juan Tizol Songs with lyrics by Irving Mills Jazz songs Exotica 1930s jazz standards Swing jazz standards Nat King Cole songs Santo & Johnny songs Jazz compositions in F minor Songs with music by Duke Ellington

Original recording

Other versions

In popular culture

See also

External links and references