Take the A Train

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"Take the A Train" is a jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn, referring to the A subway service that runs through New York City, going at that time from eastern Brooklyn up into Harlem and northern Manhattan, using the express tracks in Manhattan. It became the signature tune of Duke Ellington and often opened the shows of Ella Fitzgerald.

In 1999, National Public Radio included this song in the "NPR 100," in which NPR's music editors sought to compile the one hundred most important American musical works of the 20th century.

Strayhorn, whom Ellington hired in 1939, set about studying Ellington's scores to learn his style. As Strayhorn became able to emulate Ellington's style more closely, he was allowed to take on more arranging. "Take the A Train" was composed by Strayhorn in 1941.^[1]

The song combines the propulsive swing of the 1940s-era Ellington band with the confident sophistication of Ellington and the black elite who inhabited Sugar Hill in Harlem. The tune is in AABA form, in the key of C, with each section being a lyric couplet. Over the years the lyrics have contained many variations, as is not unusual for songs of this era. Those below are representative only, and may not be the original Strayhorn lyrics.

You must take the A Train

To go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem

If you miss the A Train

You'll find you've missed the quickest way to Harlem

Hurry, get on, now, it's coming

Listen to those rails a-thrumming (All Aboard!)

Get on the A Train

Soon you will be on Sugar Hill in Harlem

On Ellington's self-titled 1962 album with John Coltrane (Duke Ellington and John Coltrane), the two performed a composition called "Take The Coltrane".

[edit] References

^ Larson, Thomas E [2002] (2005). "The Swing Era", History and Tradition of Jazz, second edition, Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 109–110. ISBN 0-7575-1706-4.