Caravan (song)

"Caravan" is a jazz standard composed by Juan Tizol and first performed by Duke Ellington in 1936. Irving Mills wrote the lyrics, but he sometimes is not credited on the many instrumental versions. Its exotic sound interested exotica musicians; Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, and Gordon Jenkins all covered it. Woody Allen used the song in two of his films, Alice and Sweet and Lowdown. There are more than three hundred and fifty recordings of this song by Duke Ellington's orchestra, the great majority of them now in the public domain.

First version
The first version of the song was recorded in Hollywood in 1936, 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 (trumpet), Juan Tizol (trombone), Barney Bigard (clarinet), Harry Carney (baritone sax), Duke Ellington (piano), Billy Taylor (bass), and Sonny Greer (drums). All of the players were members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, which would often split into smaller units to record small-band discs. Even though Ellington was present at the recording date, the session leader was Bigard.