Duke Ellington's Cotton Tail

Duke Ellington was a composer and a bandleader. He recruited performers based on their individual sounds more and produced music to exhibit their specific abilities. Cotton Tail is a music that was composed in 1940, whereby Ellington made use of the talents of new members of his band. The two new members, Ben Webster and Jimmy Blanton brought in new elements, which Ellington integrated in his own style. Webster’s solo was so impressive that was linked to the accompanying tune. Blanton’s bass playing helped to create contrapuntal texture and his style became a basis for jazz bassists for subsequent generations. 

Cotton tail was a new tune created over a vocal advancement copied from another song. Ellington composed the Cotton tail from the chorus of the song called, “I Got Rhythm” composed by George Gershwin. Generally, Ellington songs follows the general outline of George Gershwin tune, but makes various small changes. Ellington maintained the general structure of progression but changed but used substitute chords on several passages of the harmony. Ellington used familiar vocal advancement for convenience because the performance already had knowledge of the harmonies and thus could play with confidence. The harmonic progression derived from the “I Got Rhythm” was applied more on contrafacts because the structured offered exciting possibilities. 

Originally, Cotton tail was designed as an instrumental piece whereby most parts were composed with a chart arrangement. This arrangement enabled Ellington to design mass effects, which could not be achieved through improvisation like coordinating a tune rich in jazz chords, having all members of the band sing in rhythmic unison, or harmonizing discussion between performers. However, with the improvisation, the tune contained some differences from the original instrumental procedure in some chords and rhythm. The accompanying recording to Cotton tail have maintained performances to the original instrumental arrangement.