"Take the A Train" is a jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn, referring to the 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. Jazz standard refers to a tune that is widely known, performed, and recorded among jazz musicians. ... Billy Strayhorn, photographed by Carl Van Vechten on 14. ... The A Eighth Avenue Express and C Eighth Avenue Local are two services of the New York City Subway. ... Flag Seal Nickname: Big Apple Location Location in the state of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,214. ... A map of New York City, highlighting Brooklyn. ... Harlem is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, long known as a major African American cultural and business center. ... The Borough of Manhattan, highlighted in yellow, lies between the East River and the Hudson River. ... Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington (April 29, 1899–May 24, 1974), also known simply as Duke (see Jazz royalty), was an American jazz composer, pianist, and bandleader. ... Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as Lady Ella (the First Lady of Song), was an American singer, considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th Century, alongside Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. ...

Ellington hired Strayhorn in 1939, who 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. // Events and trends World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atomic bomb. ... Sugar Hill may be one of two municipalities in the U.S.: Sugar Hill, Georgia Sugar Hill, New Hampshire Sugar Hill is a section of Harlem, Manhattan, New York, built with ambitious and handsome rowhouses. ... The thirty-two-bar form, often shortened to AABA, is common in Tin Pan Alley songs and, though there were few instances of it in any type of popular music until the late teens, it became the principal form around 1925_1926 (Wilder 1972, p. ... In musical notation, a key signature is a series of sharp symbols or flat symbols placed on the staff, designating notes that are to be consistently played one semitone higher or lower than the equivalent natural notes (for example, the white notes on a piano keyboard) unless otherwise altered with... A couplet is a pair of lines of verse that form a unit. ...

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 Board!)

Get on the A Train

Soon you will be on Sugar Hill in Harlem

References

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

See also

• List of jazz standards