23-09-2014

Take the 'A' Train (1941)

Written by Billy Strayhorn
O: Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra    15 febr 1941 on Victor







From Wikipedia

"Take the 'A' Train" is a jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn that was the signature tune of the Duke Ellington orchestra. It is arguably the most famous of the many compositions to emerge from the collaboration of Ellington and Strayhorn.
The use of the Strayhorn composition as the signature tune was made necessary by a ruling in 1940 by the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP). When ASCAP raised its licensing fees for broadcast use, many ASCAP members, including Ellington, could no longer play their compositions over radio, as most music was played live on radio in those days. Ellington turned to Billy Strayhorn and son Mercer Ellington, who were registered with ASCAP competitor BMI to "write a whole new book for the band," Mercer recalled." 'A' Train" was one of many songs written by Strayhorn, and was picked to replace "Sepia Panorama" as the band's signature song. Mercer recalled that he found the song in a trash can after Strayhorn discarded a draft of it because it sounded too much like a Fletcher Henderson arrangement.[1] The song was first recorded on January 15, 1941 as a standard transcription for radio broadcast. The first (and most famous) commercial recording was made on February 15, 1941.

The title refers to the then relatively new A subway service that runs through New York City, going at that time from eastern Brooklyn (opened in 1936) up into Harlem and northern Manhattan, using an express track section (opened in 1932) in Manhattan.

"Take the 'A' Train" was composed in 1939, after Ellington offered Strayhorn a job in his organization and gave him money to travel from Pittsburgh to New York City. Ellington wrote directions for Strayhorn to get to his house by subway, directions that began, "Take the A Train". Strayhorn was a great fan of Fletcher Henderson's arrangements. "One day, I was thinking about his style, the way he wrote for trumpets, trombones and saxophones, and I thought I would try something like that," Strayhorn recalled in Stanley Dance's The World Of Duke Ellington.

Although Strayhorn said he wrote lyrics for it, the recorded first lyrics were composed by, or for, the Delta Rhythm Boys. The lyrics used by the Ellington band were added by Joya Sherrill, who was 20 at the time (1944). She made up the words at her home in Detroit, while the song played on the radio. Her father, a noted Detroit Black activist, set up a meeting with Ellington. Owing to Joya's remarkable poise and singing ability and her unique take on the song, Ellington hired her as a vocalist and adopted her lyrics. The vocalist who most often performed the song with the Ellington band was trumpeter Ray Nance, who enhanced the lyrics with numerous choruses of scat singing. Nance is also responsible for the trumpet solo on the first recording, which was so well suited for the song that it has often been duplicated note for note by others.

Based loosely on the chordal structure of "Exactly Like You", 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. (The Ellington band's version begins in C and rises to the key of Eb after the second chorus.)

Ella Fitzgerald sang and recorded this song many times from 1957 onwards; for a live version with Ella scatting, see her 1961 Verve release Ella in Hollywood. Midwestern Rockers, Chicago added their version in 1995 on their back-to-the-roots-disc, Night & Day Big Band. Jo Stafford recorded an intentionally inept interpretation of the song under the pseudonym, Darlene Edwards.


The Rolling Stones used the song as the introductory track on their 1982 live album "Still Life" (American Concert 1981).

The improvisational rock band Phish often performed the song early in their career. The last known performance by them was on April 13, 1994 at the Beacon Theatre.

In the 1984 film, Moscow on the Hudson, Robin Williams plays saxophone with a Russian circus, but wants to be a jazz musician. He is seen in the film playing "Take the 'A' Train."

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.

The Voice of America Jazz Hour, hosted by Willis Conover, used this song as its theme.

The Cherry Poppin' Daddies used the song's opening piano lick (albeit in a different key) to open their song 'Ding-Dong Daddy of the D Car Line'.

The opening number to the musical In The Heights includes a brief homage to this song when Usnavi sings, "You must take the 'A' Train / Even farther than Harlem to northern Manhattan and maintain / Get off at 181st and take the escalator / I hope you're writing this down, I'm gonna test ya later."

In 2009, the PBS series History Detectives aired an episode [1] revealing that an original set of publishing plates for the song were in the possession by Garfield Gillings of Brooklyn, NY. Gillings stated that he found the plates at least twenty years earlier in a dumpster. Reporter Tukufu Zuberi brought the plates to the Smithsonian Institution, where curator John Hasse, who oversees the Duke Ellington collection, certified that the plates were most likely used for the first publications for Ellington's Tempo Publishing Company. Archived copies of the published sheet music were nearly identical to prints that had been made from the publishing plates.

A 2012 episode of the Disney Channel sitcom Jessie is titled "Take the A-Train.. I Think?", where much of the cast gets lost on the A train.


Read here another story about the song on JazzStandards.com


Here Duke Ellington and his band in 1943




The Delta Rhythm Boys 1941


Diana Krall




The Original from 1941 and some others.



And here a list with recordings. (most from Second Hand Songs.)
 
Take the 'A' Train Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra 1941
Take the "A" Train Glenn Miller and His Orchestra 1941
Take the "A" Train The Delta Rhythm Boys 1941
Take the "A" Train Cab Calloway 1941
Take the "A" Train Ike Carpenter and His Orchestra 1947
Take the "A" Train Harry Carney With Strings 1955
Take the "A" Train Clifford Brown and Max Roach 1955
Take the "A" Train Les Elgart and His Orchestra 1955
Take the "A" Train Milt Buckner 1955
Take the "A" Train Johnny Hodges & The Ellington All-Stars Without Duke 1957
Take the "A" Train Betty Roché 1957
Take the "A" Train Candido & Orchestra Conducted by Ernie Wilkins 1957
Take the "A" Train Jackie Gleason 1957
Take the "A" Train Morty Craft and His Orchestra 1958
Take the "A" Train Hazy Osterwald 1958
Take the "A" Train Lem Winchester 1958
Take the "A" Train Anita O'Day 1958
Take the "A" Train The Dave Brubeck Quartet 1958
Take the "A" Train George Williams and His Orchestra 1959
Take the "A" Train Morgana King, Ernie Wilkins and His Orchestra 1959
Take the "A" Train The Brothers Candoli Sextet 1959
Take the "A" Train Ray Bryant 1960
Take the "A" Train Esquivel and His Orchestra 1960
Take the "A" Train The Bobby Hackett Quartet 1960
Take the "A" Train Humphrey Lyttelton and His Band 1960
Take the "A" Train Stuff Smith 1960
Take the "A" Train Phineas Newborn Jr. 1960
Take the "A" Train Maurice Vander, Kenny Clarke, Pierre Michelot 1961
Take the "A" Train Billy Strayhorn 1961
Take the "A" Train Dorothy Donegan 1961
Take the "A" Train Dick Morgan 1961
Take the "A" Train Erskine Hawkins 1962
Take the "A" Train Eddie Jefferson 1962
Take the "A" Train Count Basie and His Orchestra, Duke Ellington and His Orchestra 1962
Take the "A" Train Maynard Ferguson 1963
Take the A Train Dick Schory's Percussion Pops Orchestra 1963
Take the "A" Train Tito Rodriguez, featuring Zoot Sims, Clark Terry, Bobbie Brookmeyer, Al Cohen, Bernie Leighton 1963
Take the "A" Train The Stuff Smith Quartet 1965
Take the "A" Train Pat Riccio Quartet Featuring Teddy Wilson 1966
Take the "A" Train Sarah Vaughan 1967
Take the "A" Train George Wein and His All-Stars 1967
Take the A Train Booker Ervin 1968
Take the "A" Train Jimmy McGriff Organ and Blues Band 1968
Take the "A" Train Ray Nance May 1969
Take the "A" Train Steve Allen 1971
Take the "A" Train Dwike Mitchell, Willie Ruff 1972
Take the "A" Train Johnny Meyer 1973
Take the "A" Train The Anita Kerr Singers 1974
Take the "A" Train Clark Terry's Big Bad Band 1974
A Train Norman Blake, Tut Taylor, Butch Robins, Sam Bush, Vassar Clements, Dave Holland, Jethro Burns 1975
Take the "A" Train Chris Barber with Ray Nance 1975
Take the "A" Train Kenny Burrell 1975
Take the "A" Train Roland Hanna 1975
Take the A Train Sun Ra and His Arkestra 1976
Take the "A" Train Carol Sloane 1977
Take the "A" Train Frankie Capp / Nat Pierce 1977
Take the "A" Train Joe Venuti and Dave McKenna 1977
Take the "A" Train Tommy Turk 1977
Take the "A" Train James Newton 1978
Take the "A" Train Rob McConnell and The Boss Brass 1978
Take the "A" Train Jimmy Takeuchi & Teddy Wilson 1978
Take the "A" Train Toshiko Akiyoshi 1978
Take the "A" Train Concord Super Band 1979
Take the "A" Train Richard Tee 1979
Take the "A" Train Toots Thielemans 1979
Take the "A" Train Eddie Higgins 1980
Take the Coltrane Ricky Ford 1980
Take the "A" Train Milt Jackson, Ray Brown, Mickey Roker, Joe Pass 1980
Take the "A" Train Duck Baker 1980
Take the A-Train The George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band 1981
Take the "A" Train Yasuko Agawa 1982
Take the A Train Chaka Khan, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson,
 Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White
1982
Take the "A" Train Jimmy Forrest With Shirley Scott 1982
Take the "A" Train Toshiyuki Miyama & New Herd 1982
Take the "A" Train Jonathan and Darlene Edwards 1982
Take the "A" Train Acker Bilk 1983
Take the "A" Train Peter Herbolzheimer Rhythm Combination & Brass 1983
Take the "A" Train The Ray Brown Trio featuring Gene Harris 1984
Take the "A" Train Panama Francis and the Savoy Sultans 1984
Take the "A" Train Hilton Ruiz 1985
Take the "A" Train Ronny Whyte Trio 1985
Take the "A" Train The Don Lusher Big Band 1986
Take the "A" Train World Saxophone Quartet 1986
Take the "A" Train Cedar Walton, David Williams [1], Billy Higgins 1987
Take the "A" Train Marian McPartland 1987
Take the "A" Train Doc Severinsen & The Tonight Show Band 1987
Take the "A" Train Max Neissendorfer Trio 1988
Take the "A" Train Jimmy and Stacy Rowles 1988
Take the "A" Train Paul Bley Trio 1989
Take the Coltrane Bill Perkins-James Clay Quintet 1989
Take the "A" Train The Cedar Walton Trio 1989
Take the A Train Joe Henderson 1991
Take the "A" Train Peter Appleyard 1991
Take the "A" Train Gerry Wiggins 1991
Take the "A" Train Spanky Wilson 1991
Take the "A" Train Terrence Farrell 1992
Take the "A" Train Laszlo Gardony 1993
Take the "A" Train Claude Williams 1993
Take the "A" Train The Gene Harris Quartet 1993
Take the "A" Train James Carter Quartet 1994
Take the "A" Train Rex Allen's Swing Express 1994
Take the "A" Train Franz Jackson, Marcus Belgrave 1994
Take the "A" Train The Harry Allen-Keith Ingham Quintet 1994
Take the Coltrane John McLaughlin With Elvin Jones and Joey DeFrancesco 1995
Take the "A" Train Brian Melvin Quartet 1995
Take the "A" Train Dave Rasmussen Jazz Orchestra 1995
Take the A Train Floyd McDaniel & Erwin Helfer 1995
Take the "A" Train Clarence Gatemouth Brown July 15, 1997
Take the "A" Train Herb Pomeroy 1997
Take the "A" Train Heinz v. Hermann Jazz Ahead 1999
Take The A-train Herman Brood 1999
Take the A-Train Coco Schumann Quartett 1999
Take the A Train Joscho Stephan January 31, 2000
Take the "A" Train Joe Newman, Ove Lind Quintet Featuring Lars Estrand 2000
Take the "A" Train The Demagogue Reacts! 2000
Take the A-Train Westwind Brass 2000
Take the "A" Train Tommy Newsom August 7, 2001
Strayhorn Medley Emilie-Claire Barlow 2001
Take the 'A' Train Darius de Haas June 4, 2002
Take the "A" Train The Danny Moss Quartet Plus Roy Williams 2002
Take the "A" train Manuel Rocheman 2003
Take the A Train Bobby Zee & Zoe 2003
Take the A Train Guymon Ensely Quintet 2003
Take the "A" Train Joan Stiles with Clark Terry, Frank Wess April 6, 2004
Take the "A" Train Swing Girls August 21, 2004
Take the "A" Train Charlie Watts and The Tenet August 24, 2004
Take the A-Train Jim Lammers 2004
Take the "A" Train Farrell/Nicolls 2005
Take the A Train Ed Neumeister Quartet 2005
Take the "A" Train Eldar May 30, 2006
Take the "A" Train Giancarlo Mazzù, Luciano Troja 2006
Take the A Train Bill Carrothers and Marc Copland 2006
A Train Warren Battiste 2008
Take the "A" Train The Dana Legg Stage Band September 8, 2009
Take the "A" Train Nikki Yanofsky April 20, 2010
Take the "A" Train Robi Botos Quintet 2010
Take the A Train Cynthia Felton 2010
Take the "A" Train Bernie Worrell June 7, 2011
Take the "A" Train Ira Sullivan & Stu Katz September 20, 2011
I'm Beginning to See the Light
 / Take the 'A' Train / Cotton Tail
Joe Jackson with Christian McBride & Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson June 21, 2012

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