Duke Ellington, music · Eddie DeLange and Irving Mills, lyrics · First recorded by Ellington's orchestra for Victor in Chicago
Solitude
Solitude is a slow ballad that Duke Ellington wrote in 1934, with words by Eddie DeLange and Irving Mills. According to Wikipedia, Ellington wrote it in the studio in twenty minutes to fill out a recording session. Billie Holiday sang it in 1952, Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins played it in the 1950s, and Marianne Faithfull sang it in 2008.
Listen in this order
The path starts with Ellington's own 1934 record and Billie Holiday's sung version. It then moves through a piano trio, a saxophone trio, Ellington's 1957 record and his 1962 trio, before a guitar version and a long live saxophone trio close it.
1960sDuke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Max Roach1962 · Hard bop
1970sJoe Pass1974 · Bebop
Archie Shepp Trio1976 · Contemporary jazz
Progress can't be saved in this browser.
Step 1 of 8 Now playing✓ Heard
Hear the original
Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra · 1934
Brunswick 78 rpm single
Ellington reportedly wrote Solitude in about twenty minutes in the studio at his Victor session in Chicago on 10 January 1934. He recorded it again for Brunswick in New York on 12 September, and that record reached number two on the charts.
Ellington plays it
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
The band plays the tune on its own, at a slow, sad pace.
Try it on your instrument
Play the first eight of the chart slowly: , , , , , , then E♭maj7. Smaller version: hum the tune along with the record. Wikipedia gives for the 1934 composition, while the chart here is in E♭.
Billie Holiday recorded Solitude in Los Angeles on 26 March 1952, with Oscar Peterson on piano and Charlie Shavers on trumpet. Mercury issued it that year on a single with East of the Sun, and Clef put it on her 1956 album Solitude.
Sung versions
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
A singer takes the tune, so this is the first time on the path that you hear the song's lonely words. A small band with Oscar Peterson on piano plays behind her.
Try it on your instrument
Sing or hum the tune slowly over the (, , , , ) and breathe where the phrases end. Smaller version: sing it with no instrument at all.
Thelonious Monk recorded this at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, in July 1955, with Oscar Pettiford on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums. Riverside issued the all-Ellington album in 1956.
Trio versions
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
A trio of piano, bass and drums. Monk's piano plays the tune with only bass and drums behind it.
Try it on your instrument
On piano, play the with your left hand and the tune with your right, at the slow pace of this track. Smaller version: play only the chord on the first beat of each and hum the tune.
Sonny Rollins recorded this on 7 March 1957 in Los Angeles with only Ray Brown on bass and Shelly Manne on drums behind him. It came out that year on Way Out West.
Trio versions
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
A tenor saxophone with only bass and drums. At nearly eight minutes, it is the longest track on the path so far.
Try it on your instrument
Play the tune on a melody instrument while a friend or a backing track plays only the bass note of each . If you can improvise over , take a second . Smaller version: play the tune twice and change one phrase the second time.
Ellington recorded Solitude again on 14 October 1957 for his Columbia album Ellington Indigos, released in 1958. On this track he is the featured soloist on piano.
Ellington plays it
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
Ellington takes the lead on piano, twenty-three years after the first record. The track runs nearly five minutes, much longer than the 1934 version.
Try it on your instrument
Play the from the chart very slowly, holding each for its full and letting it ring. Smaller version: play just the first four bars.
Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Max Roach · 1962 · Hard bop
Money Jungle
Ellington recorded Money Jungle at Sound Makers in New York City on 17 September 1962, with Charles Mingus on bass and Max Roach on drums. United Artists released the album in February 1963.
Ellington plays it · Trio versions
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
Ellington plays with only bass and drums behind him, in a track of about five and a half minutes.
Try it on your instrument
Play the from the chart: , , and , then A♭6, A°7, E♭6/B♭ with , and with . Smaller version: play only its first four bars.
Joe Pass recorded Portraits of Duke Ellington in Los Angeles on 21 June 1974, shortly after Ellington's death. Pablo released the album in 1975.
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
A guitar leads, with Ray Brown on bass behind it, and the track runs a little over five minutes.
Try it on your instrument
On guitar, play the of the whole 32 from the chart at a slow pace, with the bass note on beat one of each chord. Smaller version: play the first eight bars twice.
Ellington writes the song and records it for Victor in Chicago in January 1934, then again for Brunswick in New York that September. The Brunswick record reaches number two on the charts.
1950s
Billie Holiday sings it in Los Angeles in 1952, Thelonious Monk plays it with a trio in 1955, and in 1957 Sonny Rollins plays it on tenor saxophone with only bass and drums.
1960s
Ellington, Charles Mingus and Max Roach record it as a trio in New York in September 1962, on the album Money Jungle.
1970s
Joe Pass plays it on guitar in Los Angeles in June 1974, shortly after Ellington's death. In 1976 Archie Shepp's trio plays it live in Nuremberg for nearly twelve minutes.
2000s
Marianne Faithfull sings it on her 2008 double album Easy Come, Easy Go, recorded at Sear Sound in New York and produced by Hal Willner.
More great versions
5 more, from 1957 to 2008. Tap a cover to play it here.
1950sElla Fitzgerald1957 · Big band
The Red Garland Quintet with John Coltrane and Donald Byrd1957 · Hard bop
1960sLouis Armstrong and Duke Ellington1961 · Swing
Red Garland's quintet with John Coltrane and Donald Byrd recorded this at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack on 13 December 1957. Prestige released it on High Pressure in 1961.
Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington met in the studio only once, on 3 and 4 April 1961 in New York. This track came out on The Great Reunion, one of two Roulette albums from those sessions.
Nina Simone sings Solitude on Nina Simone Sings Ellington, recorded in New York in 1961 and released in 1962. She sang, played piano and arranged the album.
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
E♭ majorusual key
32 barsA · A · B · A form
E♭ → A♭ → E♭key centers
A8 bars
A8 bars
B8 bars
A8 bars
E♭
A♭
E♭
The runs 32 in four sections of eight: A, A, B, A, in . Each A starts on and moves to , then goes through , , and . The first A ends on E♭maj7 with and B♭7, which lead back to the top. The second A ends on E♭maj7 with and E♭7, which lead into B. B opens on , , and E♭7, repeats A♭6 and A°7, then returns home through E♭6/B♭ with , and Fm7 with B♭7. The last A repeats the opening and ends on E♭maj7 with , then Fm7 and B♭7.