Ellington Effect #46: Volga Vouty

Although Ellington wrote hundreds of arrangements, this arrangement from the Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker Suite is the only arrangement we’ll be dealing with in this book. The overwhelming majority of Ellington’s arrangements are settings of popular songs. With the Nutcracker and Peer Gynt, he and Strayhorn translated European fully developed classical music into the American vernacular. Although both Ellington and Strayhorn share credit for both suites (and all their suites per Ellington’s direction to his sister/publisher), in actuality, Ellington only arranged Volga Vouty, Peanut Brittle Brigade, and In The Hall Of The Mountain King. 

The idea to arrange and record these two suites came from Strayhorn. As usual, Ellington was not very interested in arranging other composer’s music, preferring to compose his own, so Strayhorn did the lion’s share of the arrangements. Ellington’s instructions to his alter ego were to avoid “jazzing the classics” by describing the corresponding American ritual to the European ritual that Tchaikovsky and Grieg were describing, thus avoiding the superficial rhythmic treatments that plagued other jazz players and arrangers.

Volga Vouty is the Russian Dance from the second act dances in the Nutcracker. Ellington’s alliterative title cites the Russian river and Slim Gaillard’s slang (meaning “guy or cat”). The actual name of the dance in Tchaikovsky’s score is Trepak, which is a traditional Russian and Ukrainian folk dance. Tchaikovsky’s dance is rather short with little development. The theme is eight measures repeated followed by two short contrasting sections that develop the theme, and a recap that is the same as the original theme with a repetitious tag.

Ellington takes melodic and rhythmic liberties with the theme and the following contrasting sections, adding an intro and interspersing improvised solos. His shout is truer to Tchaikovsky’s theme and dance excitement but still Ellingtonian. The slower tempo allows for more hip shaking and swing feel and the blues. Ellington creates intensity through counterpoint and swinging rhythms rather than the fast tempo of the Tchaikovsky.