Caravan

Duncan Bruce is a treasure.

Lessee.. he records under and/or goes by a bewildering array of monikers and pseudonyms: Pubes.. Khalil Rahmane & The Cats of Ulthar.. Duicide.. Farad Farad.. K. Rahmane.. Kin Rahmane.. Rizmane.. Rizman.. Rahmane.. Abnu.. and Dantor, to name a few. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz and modern music. He is virtually unknown in his own country, but loved - and legendary - in the rest of the world. He books gigs and doesn't turn up to play. He releases albums of shambolic weird retardo-exotica and noise on respectable underground imprints in Western Europe (Veglia). He has an ambigious relationship with publicity - about two incomprehensible Dutch-language 'net interviews (here, and here) he once remarked that "Anything beats getting mentioned in Real Groove or NZ Musician". He has one of the best Myspace pages ever (check out the 'friends', man). He's the coolest dad I know. Usual story, really.

He is also a friend, and so it is with great pleasure and pride that I present his wonderful "shambolic weird retardo-exotica" cover of Duke Ellington's classic tune Caravan, arranged for toy drums, cheap electronic-keyboard drum-presets, reeds, synthesizer, sheep, turntables, television sitcom, and cosmic space-death-ray sounds effects unit (that's actually mostly guesswork):

Khalil Rahmane & The Cats of Ulthar - Caravan (1.42 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

Here's some more information about Caravan:

"Caravan" was written by pianist, bandleader, composer Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974), Juan Tizol (1900-1984), and Irving Mills (1894-1985).

"Caravan" was usually the second number played when the Ellington band performed. "Caravan" is considered by some to be the first real Latin jazz tune, although it owes as much to "Middle Eastern" melodies.

That was taken from this page, part of an online resource dedicated to exhaustively documenting known performances by Frank Zappa of cover versions of other people's songs. God bless the information box.