New York Big Band - Caravan

I think there’s an interesting (paranoid) thing that occurs with some writers. They are afraid to talk about their work – or share samples of their story for fear “someone will steal it” and thereby make “all the money”. (which is totally different than me unwilling to share substandard writing and proof of all my beginners mistakes)

I guess if you were writing magazine articles – or working on an investigative report a la Woodward and Bernstein – I’d understand that fear. But seriously – if I gave you a story idea – and then you wrote the story? It would totally be different than my story. The characters would be different. Our characters would have different quirks and different lives. They might have the same motivation to achieve their goal, but then again maybe not. One character might have virtuous reasons for wanting to change and another nefarious. They’d go about solving their dilemma in a different way too, I bet.

On June 16^th and June 22^nd I have two local writers who’ll be my guest on my blog. This will be much different than when I did my “salon” interviews. There I explored several different artists and citizens’ asking them what motivated them to work is a specific medium or make certain life decisions. This time, the two authors will be talking about their books. Both books have been self-published which is a choice we all face if we cannot get representation. On the 16^th, Stacy Cochran is my guest. This is his fifth self published book, but he just recently acquired an agent who’s working with him to bring his seventh novel to a major house. The other author is Elisa Lorello who’ll be discussing her book Faking It!

So – what does this have to do with music? I think the song Caravan is a perfect illustration of my point. Duke Ellington first performed this composition by Juan Tizol. And although it’s a recording that’s certainly withstood the test of time, many others have also recorded it. Listen to these four different versions. All the same song, but uniquely “theirs”.

Here’s the original Duke Ellington recording. Then later with lyrics Valaida Snow, this one changes tempos John Fedchock New York Big Band, and this one by Julie Davis and Kelly Dow has a Django feel. (I know, you’re shocked, aren’t you?).

If you look at the Wiki page, you can see a long list of who all has recorded this song.