Ted Grouya, music · Edmund Anderson, lyrics · Introduced by Herb Jeffries with Duke Ellington's orchestra
Flamingo
Flamingo is a 1941 ballad by Ted Grouya and Edmund Anderson, introduced by Herb Jeffries with Duke Ellington's band. Earl Bostic's 1951 saxophone record reached number one on the rhythm and blues chart. Jimmy Smith, Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson and Charles Mingus all recorded it in the 1950s.
Listen in this order
The path starts with the 1940 Ellington record, then follows the tune through Earl Bostic's saxophone hit, a live Stan Getz set and a live Oscar Peterson trio. Charles Mingus, Jimmy Smith and Carmen McRae come next, and Archie Shepp's 1978 quartet ends it with a version of more than twelve minutes.
1940sDuke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra, vocal by Herb Jeffries1940
1950sEarl Bostic1951 · Swing
Stan Getz Quintet1954
The Oscar Peterson Trio1956
Charles Mingus Sextet1957 · Hard bop
Jimmy Smith1958 · Hard bop
Carmen McRae1958 · Vocal
1960s
1970sArchie Shepp Quartet1978
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Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra, vocal by Herb Jeffries · 1940
Herb Jeffries sang it with Duke Ellington's band in Chicago on December 28, 1940, in an arrangement by Billy Strayhorn. According to JazzStandards.com, it was Ellington's first chart hit of 1941.
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Herb Jeffries sings with the full band behind him. This is the first recording of the song, so every later version on the path starts from it. The song has four short parts, and the first one returns at the end.
Try it on your instrument
Learn the tune by ear from this record, then play it slowly on your instrument. For a first pass, play only the of the first four : , , , .
Earl Bostic recorded it on alto saxophone on January 10, 1951. According to Wikipedia, the King single, number 4475, reached number one on the rhythm and blues chart that year.
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Bostic leads on alto saxophone with a small band behind him that includes tenor saxophone, piano, guitar, bass and drums. At 2:39 it is the shortest record on the path.
Try it on your instrument
Play the melody over a steady beat from a metronome at a medium tempo, and keep the pace even from start to finish. Then slow the metronome and notice how the tune changes character.
Stan Getz's quintet played it live at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on November 8, 1954, with Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone. It came out as Stan Getz at the Shrine on Norgran in 1955.
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Getz plays tenor saxophone and Bob Brookmeyer plays valve trombone, with piano, bass and drums behind them. At 8:33 it is more than twice as long as the Ellington record.
Try it on your instrument
Play the tune twice in a row with the from the chart, and change one thing the second time, such as the rhythm of the melody or where you pause. Improvising over the chords is a bigger step; this is the smaller version.
Charles Mingus recorded it in New York on August 6, 1957, with Clarence Shaw on trumpet and Jimmy Knepper on trombone. RCA did not release the album Tijuana Moods until June 1962 because of a legal dispute.
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Mingus leads a six-piece band from the bass, with trumpet, trombone and saxophone in front and piano and drums behind. At 5:35 it is a little longer than the Peterson trio record.
Try it on your instrument
Play just the root of each in the first four (F, D, G, C, F, B♭) to hear the tune from the bottom up, as a bassist does. Then add the melody on top.
Jimmy Smith recorded it with Lee Morgan, Kenny Burrell and Art Blakey on February 25, 1958, at Manhattan Towers in New York, and Blue Note issued it on The Sermon! in 1959. According to JazzStandards.com, it can be seen as the start of the song's popularity among jazz organists.
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Smith's organ leads a quartet with Lee Morgan on trumpet, Kenny Burrell on guitar and Art Blakey on drums. At 8:02 it is nearly as long as the Getz live record.
Try it on your instrument
Play the melody with your right hand and one low note per with your left, using the roots from the chart: F, G, F, B♭ for the first four bars.
Carmen McRae sang it on Birds of a Feather, an album of songs about birds recorded in New York in August 1958. Ralph Burns wrote the arrangements and conducted, and Ben Webster played tenor saxophone.
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McRae sings with Ben Webster's tenor saxophone and a small horn section around her, in an arrangement by Ralph Burns. After five instrumental records, this is the first voice since Ellington's.
Try it on your instrument
Hum the tune once without accompaniment, then play it. A singer has to breathe, so mark the places in the melody where you would take a breath and leave a small gap there.
Archie Shepp played alto saxophone on it with Jaki Byard, Cecil McBee and Roy Haynes in New York on December 7, 1978. It came out in Japan on Denon in 1979, on the album Lady Bird.
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Shepp's alto saxophone leads a quartet with Jaki Byard on piano. At 12:32 it is the longest record on the path, nearly five times the length of the Bostic single.
Try it on your instrument
Play the first four of the tune five times in a row, changing only the volume or the touch each time. It is a small version of what a long performance does with a short tune.
Ted Grouya's song reaches Duke Ellington's band, and Herb Jeffries sings it on a Chicago record made on December 28, 1940, in an arrangement by Billy Strayhorn. According to JazzStandards.com, it was Ellington's first chart hit of 1941.
1950s
Earl Bostic's saxophone version reaches number one on the rhythm and blues chart in 1951. Jazz groups record it too, including Stan Getz live in Los Angeles in 1954 and Jimmy Smith's organ quartet in 1958.
1960s
Larry Young plays it on organ in 1960. In 1966 Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass reach number 28 on the pop chart and number 5 on the easy listening chart with their single, according to Wikipedia.
1970s
Oscar Peterson and the violinist Stéphane Grappelli record it in Paris in 1973. In New York in 1978, Archie Shepp's quartet plays it on alto saxophone for more than twelve minutes.
1990s
Wynton Marsalis plays it with a quartet on his 1990 album Standard Time, Vol. 3: The Resolution of Romance, released on Columbia.
More great versions
7 more, from 1950 to 1990. Tap a cover to play it here.
1950sDuke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn1950 · Swing
Cannonball Adderley recorded it in Hackensack, New Jersey on July 14, 1955, with Nat Adderley on cornet, Hank Jones on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums.
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass had a hit single with it in 1966. According to Wikipedia, it reached number 28 on the pop chart and number 5 on the easy listening chart.
Oscar Peterson and the violinist Stephane Grappelli recorded it in Paris in February 1973, with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums.
The tune's layout, its keys and the chord chart, for anyone who wants to play along.
Show the form and chords
How the tune works
F majorusual key
32 barsA · A · B · A form
F · E♭ · A♭keys it moves between
A8 bars
A8 bars
B8 bars · bridge
A8 bars
F
E♭
F
E♭
F
A♭
F
E♭
F
The iReal Pro chart is in , 32 , as with 8 bars in each part. Every A begins , , then and in bars 3 and 4, which bend toward E♭. in bar 5 slides down into Gm7 C7 in bar 6. Bars 7 and 8 are Fmaj7 and Gm7 C7, which lead back to the top of the next A. The second A ends differently, on and F6, to lead into the B. The B opens in A♭ with , , and , then repeats B♭m7 and E♭7 before Gm7 and C7 in its last two bars bring it home to F. The last A is the same as the first. JazzStandards.com gives the original as , with a false key change to E♭ in the B; the iReal chart is the same shape in F and A♭.