Duke certainly satisfied those twin requirements when he hired Ivie Anderson in 1931. Then 26, Anderson had already toured extensively in vaudeville and appeared with Anson Weeks's danceband in San Francisco. The first great vocalist to regularly tour with the orchestra, Anderson came from an era in which full-time bandsingers were so unknown that the mighty Maestro waited a year before he find the perfect vehicle for Anderson to make her recording debut.
When released, "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" immediately entered the world's cultural vocabularly and named an era. While Anderson rates three vocal spots, her largely-scatted choruses here has more in common with earlier singers who had previously made guest appearances on Ellington discs (particularly Adelaide Hall's wordless classic, "Creole Love Call"). In one of the most sublime examples of Ellington juxtaposing human and instrumental voices, Anderson scats over Wellman Braud's slapping bass in the intro, then, after Joe Nanton's very-vocal muted solo, states the now-famous melody with antiphonous call-and-response patterns with the wah-wah-ing ensemble already written in. The hauntingly beautiful "Solitude," which also features Ben Webster's first solo as a member of the band, more typifies the ballads we associate with Anderson. One of the highlights of her 11-year tenure with Ellington, "Solitude" effectively spotlights the great singer's miraculously cool-yet-warm sound.
