In a Sentimental Mood
Encyclopedia
"In a Sentimental Mood" is a jazz
composition
by Duke Ellington
which is also performed as a song
. Ellington composed the piece in 1935 and recorded it with his orchestra the same year. Lyrics were later written for the tune by Irving Mills
and Manny Kurtz. According to Ellington, the song was born in Durham, North Carolina. "We had played a big dance in a tobacco warehouse, and afterwards a friend of mine, an executive in the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company, threw a party for Amy. I was playing piano when another one of our friends had some trouble with two chicks. To pacify them, I composed this there and then, with one chick standing on each side of the piano." The original recording featured solos by Otto Hardwicke, Harry Carney
, Lawrence Brown, and Rex Stewart
.
"In a Sentimental Mood" makes use of a musical technique called contrapuntal
or chromatic embellishment of static harmony. This is also sometimes referred to as a line cliché.
Ellington recorded his best-known version together with John Coltrane
, which is featured on Duke Ellington and John Coltrane and Coltrane for Lovers
. The song has been performed by many other artists including Phyllis Hyman
, Ella Fitzgerald
, Sarah Vaughan
, Art Tatum
, Oscar Peterson
, Bill Evans
, Stan Getz
, Django Reinhardt
, Lucky Thompson
, Jay McShann
, Benny Goodman
, Pedro Rossi, Billy Joel
, Nancy Wilson
, Dr. John
, Sonny Rollins
, Michael Brecker
(Steps Ahead
), Daniel Barenboim
, Edvard Sađil, Larry Coryell
(from his 2001 album Inner Urge),, Rob Mullins, Archie Shepp
, and Alex Bugnon
.
.
This song was also featured in the movie Love Jones.
It was also featured in an episode of The Cosby Show
.
The song was featured in the 1991 comic book film, The Rocketeer
. The tune was played during a memorable dance sequence between Timothy Dalton
and Jennifer Connelly
.
A version by Benny Goodman also appears in an episode of the Ken Burns documentary The War called "When Things Get Tough."
Performed in Basil Deardon's 1962 re-telling of Othello, All Night Long.
It is also available on the soundtrack of Me and Orson Welles
(2009) performed by Benny Goodman
and his Orchestra
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
by Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
which is also performed as a song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
. Ellington composed the piece in 1935 and recorded it with his orchestra the same year. Lyrics were later written for the tune by Irving Mills
Irving Mills
Irving Mills was a jazz music publisher, also known by the name of "Joe Primrose."Mills was born to Jewish parents in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. He founded Mills Music with his brother Jack in 1919...
and Manny Kurtz. According to Ellington, the song was born in Durham, North Carolina. "We had played a big dance in a tobacco warehouse, and afterwards a friend of mine, an executive in the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company, threw a party for Amy. I was playing piano when another one of our friends had some trouble with two chicks. To pacify them, I composed this there and then, with one chick standing on each side of the piano." The original recording featured solos by Otto Hardwicke, Harry Carney
Harry Carney
Harry Howell Carney was an American swing baritone saxophonist, clarinetist, and bass clarinetist mainly known for his 45-year tenure in Duke Ellington's Orchestra. Carney started off as an alto player with Ellington, but soon switched to the baritone. His strong, steady saxophone often served as...
, Lawrence Brown, and Rex Stewart
Rex Stewart
Rex Stewart was an American jazz cornetist best known for his work with the Duke Ellington orchestra....
.
"In a Sentimental Mood" makes use of a musical technique called contrapuntal
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
or chromatic embellishment of static harmony. This is also sometimes referred to as a line cliché.
Ellington recorded his best-known version together with John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, which is featured on Duke Ellington and John Coltrane and Coltrane for Lovers
Coltrane for Lovers
Coltrane for Lovers is a posthumous compilation album by American jazz musician John Coltrane, released January 23, 2001 on Impulse! Records in the United States. Its recordings were recorded during December 1961 to April 1963 at engineer Rudy Van Gelder's recording studio in Englewood Cliffs, New...
. The song has been performed by many other artists including Phyllis Hyman
Phyllis Hyman
Phyllis Linda Hyman was an American soul singer and actress.-Early years:Phyllis Hyman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the St. Clair Village, the South Hills section of Pittsburgh...
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, Art Tatum
Art Tatum
Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...
, Oscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...
, Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
, Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
, Lucky Thompson
Lucky Thompson
Eli "Lucky" Thompson was a United States jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist...
, Jay McShann
Jay McShann
Jay McShann was an American Grammy Award-nominated jump blues, mainstream jazz, and swing bandleader, pianist and singer....
, Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Pedro Rossi, Billy Joel
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...
, Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson (singer)
Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist...
, Dr. John
Dr. John
Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr. , better known by the stage name Dr. John , is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist, whose music combines blues, pop, jazz as well as Zydeco, boogie woogie and rock and roll.Active as a session musician since the late 1950s, he came to wider...
, Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
, Michael Brecker
Michael Brecker
Michael Leonard Brecker was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Acknowledged as "a quiet, gentle musician widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since John Coltrane," he has been awarded 15 Grammy Awards as both performer and composer and was inducted into Down Beat Jazz...
(Steps Ahead
Steps Ahead
Steps Ahead is a jazz fusion group and the brainchild of vibraphonist Mike Mainieri. According to the liner notes of the group's 1983 debut album , entitled Steps Ahead, "Steps began as a part-time venture in 1979 at Seventh Avenue South, a New York City nightclub." The group began releasing...
), Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim, KBE is an Argentinian-Israeli pianist and conductor. He has served as music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings....
, Edvard Sađil, Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell is an American jazz fusion guitarist.-Biography:Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington, where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby...
(from his 2001 album Inner Urge),, Rob Mullins, Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...
, and Alex Bugnon
Alex Bugnon
Alex Bugnon is a jazz pianist and composer from Montreux, Switzerland.Bugnon studied at the Paris Conservatory and the Mozart Academy in Salzburg. At age nineteen, he moved to the U.S...
.
In movies and television
"In a Sentimental Mood" has also been in a soundtrack, specifically in PrimePrime (film)
Prime is a 2005 American romantic comedy film starring Uma Thurman, Meryl Streep and Bryan Greenberg. It was written and directed by Ben Younger...
.
This song was also featured in the movie Love Jones.
It was also featured in an episode of The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show
The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992...
.
The song was featured in the 1991 comic book film, The Rocketeer
The Rocketeer (film)
The Rocketeer is a 1991 period superhero adventure film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and based on the character of the same name created by comic book writer/artist Dave Stevens. Directed by Joe Johnston, the film stars Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Alan Arkin, Timothy Dalton, Paul Sorvino...
. The tune was played during a memorable dance sequence between Timothy Dalton
Timothy Dalton
Timothy Peter Dalton ) is a Welsh actor of film and television. He is known for portraying James Bond in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill , as well as Rhett Butler in the television miniseries Scarlett , an original sequel to Gone with the Wind...
and Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
.
A version by Benny Goodman also appears in an episode of the Ken Burns documentary The War called "When Things Get Tough."
Performed in Basil Deardon's 1962 re-telling of Othello, All Night Long.
It is also available on the soundtrack of Me and Orson Welles
Me and Orson Welles
Me and Orson Welles is a 2009 period-drama film directed by Richard Linklater and starring Zac Efron, Christian McKay, and Claire Danes. Based on Robert Kaplow's novel of the same name, the story, set in 1937 New York, tells of a teenager hired to perform in Orson Welles's stage production of...
(2009) performed by Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
and his Orchestra