It don’t mean a thing (if it ain’t got that swing)

Composed by Duke Ellington

32 Bar Song Form AABA, 8 bars per section.
Form- Ivie Anderson with the Duke Ellington Orchestra
Intro: Female vocalist (Anderson) with scat (no words here, just sounds and
syllables) melody. Improvised over blues scale. Accompanied by standard jazz
rhythm section (piano, double bass, drums). Bass plays repeated walking,
descending crotchet riff (a la ‘Hit The Road Jack’). Jungle (early swing) beat in
drums, light comping in piano. This looped vamp is basically over two chords: the
tonic minor, which leads to the V7 chord, which then resolves to the tonic.
Chorus 1: Trumpet plays melody, with much use of hat mute to get ‘wah-wah’
sound. Often strays away from the melody in improvised phrases, over the chord
changes. Joined by other horns (saxes, brass) with harmonic backings.
Chorus 2: Female voice enters, and sings melody of the song with lyrics. This uses
call in response with the brass section- the first phrase (‘It don’t mean a thing…) is
sung by vocals, and the second phrase (doo-wah, doo-wah…) is played by the brass
(trumpets and trombones) with use of hat mutes to create different ‘syllables’.
Improvised counter-melodies arise in tenor sax, piano and clarinet.
‘Chorus’ 3 (bridge): Alto Saxophone solo. Does not use the form used in other
choruses. Instead, for 8 bars, it is made up of chromatically descending dominant 7th
chords (1 chord per bar), before it rests on a Major 6/9 chord for 4 bars, creating a
12-bar pattern. These 12 bars are repeated (with more improvisation from the sax).
The solo is backed by on-beat harmonic stabs from the horns in the descending
dominant 7th section, and more melodic backings while it rests on the major chord.
Chorus 4: The alto solo continues, but this time it returns to the original form. There
are still backings from the horns, but in general a sparser texture is created. In the B
section, the alto returns to the horn section for a non-improvised horn ‘soli’, but
returns to soloing in the last A section.
Chorus 5: The alto continues soloing, but the main melodic material is in the rest of
the horn section, who play the original melody of the song. In the B section, the
female vocalist returns, with a scat solo, backed by just the rhythm section. She
continues singing into the A section, but now with the original melody in the lyrics.
The ‘doo-wah’ phrase in the brass is repeated multiple times, and leads into a short
coda.
Summary- Intro, Head (x2), Solo (Bridge), Solo (Form), End of Head, Coda.
Form- Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington
Intro (Chorus 1)- Melody (and chords) played by the piano (Ellington), (in the first
A sections, with no backing, except the sound of applause). Joined by bass and
drums at the end of the 2nd A section (drums play swing beat, bass walks). Melody
often ‘quasi-improvised’ but usually quite similar to original melody.
Chorus 2- Female voice (Fitzgerald) enters with melody, with lyrics. Like Ellington,
Fitzgerald plays around with the melody a lot, pushing the beat forwards and
backwards, and using rubato, and sometimes even making slight changes to the
lyrics.
Chorus 3- Fitzgerald’s vocal scat solo. Fitzgerald improvises around the chord
changes.
Chorus 4- Tenor saxophone solo (improvised…)
Chorus 5- Fitzgerald sings another solo, with call and response with a male vocalist
who sings the ‘doo-wah’ melody in the A sections, and improvises in the B sections.
Notably, in the last A section, Ella quotes ‘Rain, rain, go away, come again some
other day’.
Chorus 6- Male vocalist swaps 8s with tenor saxophone. In B section, male vocalist
sings melody (with lyrics).
Chorus 7- Fitzgerald, male vocalist, and tenor saxophone alternate with solos. Male
vocalist sings melody with lyrics in B section.
Choruses 8,9 – Fitzgerald improvises, quiet backings from tenor sax.
Chorus 10- Horn section (trumpets, trombones, saxes) join with non-improvised
backings. Ella continues soloing, but tenor also improvises with more backings. Ella
quotes ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ in Bsection. Drums now take on a ‘2-step’ feel.
Chorus 11- Like chorus 10, but also includes more horns improvising in
background, notably the lead trumpet, with many high notes. Ends with a very short
coda.
Summary-Head (x2), Solos (x8). References to Head quite common.

Comparison of Elements
Element Ivie Anderson version
Melody • Occurs in a few different instruments, including voice (female), muted trumpet, alto
saxophone, with counter-melodies from tenor sax and clarinet.
• Anderson’s treatment of melody: Improvisations often based around blues scale.
While singing main melody (‘It don’t mean a thing…), she stays fairly true to
original written melody, with some ‘rubato’, and also uses some improvised melodic
extensions using ‘blues’ notes, and other embellishments: slides, grace notes,
mordents, etc.
• Lead Trumpet’s treatment of melody: involves playing some phrases of the original
melody, but also moving into improvised phrases. Commonly uses repetition.
• Alto Saxophone’s (solo) treatment of melody: improvised over changes. Often
arpeggiated, using diminished arpeggios. Sometimes these arpeggios are played very
rapidly, up and down the full range of the instrument. Vibrato used extensively.
Harmony • F Minor is main key
• Repeats form throughout, except for intro and bridge (see ‘form’ section for more
detail)
• Chords are ‘jazz’ chords, using extensions such as 7ths and 9ths.
• Modulates to Db major in B section.
Duration • Swing feel in melody (and piano comping) throughout, but crotchets in bass and
(beat/rhythm) jungle feel in drums don’t ‘swing’, as they don’t play quavers.
• Syncopation and off-beat accents common (strongly evident in ‘doo-wah’ phrase of
melody.
• 4/4 throughout. Crotchet= about 220.
Dynamics • Quite consistent dynamic level throughout (about mf). Melodic instruments are
loudest.
• Loudest section is bridge, with saxophone playing at a loud dynamic with loud stabs
from the horns.
Tone Colour • Instrumentation- Conventional Big Band- Rhythm section (piano, bass, drums),
horns (trumpets, trombones, clarinet, saxes-alto, tenor, bari).
• Generally ‘rough’ timbres in most instruments. Growls used in trumpets, and mutes
often used in brass. Saxes very rich and velvety.
• Recording quality quite poor, lots of static is heard.
Articulation • Swing articulation used throughout:
• Accents often are ‘hats’, implying staccato with accents.
Element Ella Fitzgerald Version
Melody • Like Anderson version, occurs in multiple instruments, including voice (female and
male), piano, tenor saxophone, with counter-melodies in trumpet.
• Ellington’s (piano) treatment of the melody: like Fitzgerald, he plays around with the
time, but his treatment of the melody is comparatively sparse, using accented chords
and changing his voicings, fragmenting the melody, rather than embellishing it.
• Fitzgerald’s treatment of the melody: she treats the main melody much more freely
than Anderson. She pushes the beat forward and back, moving the placement of the
phrase, and also uses ‘rubato’. Her improvisations are much more complicated than
Anderson’s- Fitzgerald improvises around the chord changes, using arpeggiated lines
and particular scales relating to the specific chord, and makes more use of passing
and dissonant notes such as 7ths, 9ths and 13ths, rather than just using the one blues
scale.
• Tenor sax’s treatment of the melody: like Fitzgerald, it improvises around the
changes using appropriate scales and arpeggios. It also uses ‘out’ notes, such as the
rd
major 3 over a minor 7 chord. It often uses variation as a device, playing an idea
and then varying it slightly.
Harmony • Eb minor is the main key (a tone down from the Anderson version)
• Repeats the form every chorus, so the same harmony is heard all the way through. It
is the same progression as the Anderson version.
• Similar chord extensions are heard in comping.
Duration • Slightly slower than the Anderson version- 4/4 time, crotchet= about 192.
(beat/rhythm) • Syncopation and off-beat accents still very common (Ellington uses syncopation
extensively in his piano intro)
• Swing feel throughout. In this version, the drums play a swing beat, as opposed to the
jungle beat as heard in the Anderson version. Bass still walks on crotchets.
Dynamics • Like Anderson version, mostly a consistent dynamic throughout. However, this
version builds very strongly at the end, when the full horn section enters. Here, a
very loud dynamic is heard.
Tone Colour • Differs from Anderson version substantially- for the majority of the piece, only a
small jazz group is used (piano, bass, drums, voices, tenor sax) as opposed to the big
band that is used all the way through in the other version.
• Fitzgerald’s voice sounds rougher than Anderson, and she also uses a much wider
range of pitches.
• The male voice is extremely rough and husky. For dramatic effect, he reaches into
his higher register.
• The sound of the tenor sax is much richer than the alto in the Anderson version. It’s
sound is quite husky and airy.
• Better quality recording (due to technological advancements)- much clearer sound.
Articulation • Like Anderson version.
Context of Work
• It Don’t Mean A Thing was written and arranged in 1931. It is considered a jazz standard,
and has been widely performed and played by many artists.
• Duke Ellington was one of the earliest leaders in jazz. He wrote hundreds of compositions,
many that went on to become standards. His orchestra (big band) is highly renowned as
one of the greatest orchestras in jazz history.
• At this time, Ellington and his orchestra had long had a regular gig at the famous Cotton
Club in New York City.
• The song became famous, Ellington wrote, “as the expression of a sentiment which
prevailed among jazz musicians at the time.”
• It was a celebration of swing in music, and a rejection of more serious ‘art music’.
• It is strongly representative of the jazz culture of the time- it is a tune that can easily be
danced to.
• ‘Swing’ is also associated strongly with improvisation, and Ellington also celebrates the
spontaneity involved in improvisation.
Context of Ivie Anderson version
• Anderson was the first vocalist to perform the song with Ellington.
• She changed Ellington’s indifference to hiring vocalists, and she was considered to be the
best vocalist he ever employed.
• It was recorded in the early 1930s, where big band swing was highly fashionable.
Context of Ella Fitzgerald version
• This recording saw the meeting of one of the great jazz composers and pianists of all time
with one of the greatest female jazz vocalists.
• It was recorded in 1957. The big band era was over, and the hard bop era was flourishing.
Most of these ensembles were smaller groups, such as quartets and quintets.
• The time had also seen further advancements in improvisation- unlike the big band era,
where the focus was mainly on the song, or the tune, the focus now was on the
improvisation.