In 1936, Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol created a Jazz standard, “Caravan”, that would not only be incredibly successful in its original version, but also go on and be an example of what I mentioned previously as a core value of Jazz — the improvisation and recreation of classic works that shed light on the artistic capabilities and talents of artists that can put their own twist on certain songs. 

“Caravan”was originally composed and performed in 1936 with Barney Bigard and His Jazzopators. The following year, the sheet music for “Caravan” was one of the top fifteen bestsellers in the nation. Embracing the nature of Jazz standards, the song went on to be covered and taken into new artistic lights by several artists such as Billy Eckstine (which got to #27 on the pop charts) (Jazz standards, “Caravan” (1936)), Dizzy Gillespie (who adds an even more exotica twist when putting it on his album Afro in 1954), and Wynton Marsalis who can be seen as one of today’s biggest Jazz trumpeters. Overall, the legacy that Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington left behind with their creation of “Caravan” was one that continues to be absorbed within the Jazz community.

Chart positions of different versions of “Caravan”.

There are aspects such as its exoticism that Tizol brings with his Latin roots that brings the piece into a subgenre of Jazz known as Exotica, and with how unique the composition is, it is considered one of the greatest works of this genre (Serrano, Chapter 11).  Exotica itself brings about unique and different instrumentations and stylings creating a “blend of cool jazz, well-crafted pop, and rhythmic world music”.  The use of instruments such as various forms of “percussion, xylophone, and vibes” as well as the use of harmonic minors differentiated Exotica as a subgenre of aJazz (Exotica, AV Club). Again this emphasizes the spectrum and range that Jazz can follow and the varying individualistic forms that can arise from it based on who is playing and performing certain works.

Andrew Neiman’s final performance of “Caravan”.

Dizzy Gillespie’s version of “Caravan”.