Mood Indigo

The piece opens with an unusual blend of instruments playing close together in a low register, a clarinet, a muted trumpet, and a trombone, so tightly voiced that at first it can be hard to tell them apart. That blurred, smoky chord is the piece's signature sound, and Ellington reportedly built the whole arrangement around discovering it. The main tune follows, a slow, drooping melody in short phrases that seem to sigh downward, matching the mournful title. Listen for the way the tune keeps returning to the same falling shape, as if turning the same thought over. In an orchestral setting, expect the melody to pass between sections, strings taking over the sighing lines, brass echoing the muted, murky color of the original three-instrument blend. There is no dramatic climax to wait for. Instead the piece stays inward and quiet throughout, rising only slightly before settling back down. If a vocalist is included, the words dwell on loneliness and lost love, matching the music's downcast character. The piece is short, and its interest lies less in where it goes than in the color of the sound itself, that dark, blended, "indigo" tone Ellington was after from the first bar to the last.

Duke Ellington composed "Mood Indigo" in 1930 while leading his orchestra at the Cotton Club in Harlem, and it quickly became one of his signature pieces. The tune is often credited jointly to Ellington, clarinetist Barney Bigard, and lyricist Irving Mills, reflecting how much of Ellington's early work grew out of collaboration with his band members. Its distinctive sound came from an unusual voicing, muted trumpet, trombone, and clarinet playing close together in a low register, which gave the piece its hazy, blue-toned character. The song was first broadcast and recorded in 1930 and soon spread beyond jazz circles, picked up by singers and dance bands and eventually arranged for full orchestra. It has remained a standard of American popular song ever since, arranged and rearranged for everything from solo piano to symphony orchestra, a testament to how durable Ellington's original harmonic idea proved to be.