 | It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That SwingDuke Ellington with Ivie Anderson |
Writer(s): Duke Ellington (music), Irving Mills (words) (see lyrics here) First Charted: February 27, 1932 Peak: 6 PM, 18 GA, 4 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 23.27 video, 5.83 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details. 
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About the Song:Duke Ellington is “perhaps the single most important creative talent in Americna popular music history.” PM After forming his first band in 1918, he went to New York in 1923 and started working at the famous Cotton Club. In the early ‘30s, his “unparalleled genius as a jazz band composer became unmistakable.” PM He charted 70 songs from 1927 to 1953. Ellington originally wrote “It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That Swing” as an instrumental. His trumpeter, Bubber Miley, then came up with the title WK and Irving Mills added lyrics to it later. The lyrics “insist that what makes a tune complete is not the melody…It’s the rhythm, the most primitive musical element that makes a song swing.” TY2 Jazz historian Gunther Schuller called the now jazz standard “legendary” and “a prophetic piece and a prophetic title.” WK The song is especially notable because it gave the swing era its name. PM It became “the most popular music of the last half of the ‘30s and into the early ’40s.” TY2 Ellington himself said the song became famous “as the expression of a sentiment which prevailed among jazz musicians at the time.” WK Ellington recorded it with Ivie Anderson on vocals and solos by Johnny Hodges and Joe Nanton. His version reached #6. That same year, the Mills Brothers got to #7 with their rendition. PM Others to record the song include Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, the Boswell Sisters, Teresa Brewer, Dr. John, Ella Fitzgerald, Stephane Grappelli with Django Reinhardt, Thelonious Monk, and Mel Tormé. WK Resources:
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First posted 5/13/2025. |
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