Take the "A" train

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Take the “A” Train is a jazz standard composed and writtenby Billy Strayhorn in 1939, which was used by the Duke Ellington Orchestra from 1941 as a signature tune. The piece became “a symbol of the swing era ”. It combines the driving swing of the Duke Ellington Band of the 1940s with the confident dexterity of Ellington and the black elite in Harlem.

History of origin

The title refers to Line A of the New York City Subway , which runs from Brooklyn via Lower Manhattan to Harlem . Strayhorn allegedly wrote the piece in 1939 as a present for Duke Ellington after he had given him his address in New York and advised him to take Line A towards Harlem. Shortly after his visit to Ellington, New York, he told a reporter from Pittsburgh , “I will be working for Duke. I played him this A-train and he liked it. I'm moving to New York. "

construction

The piece has a major characteristic and is written in the AABA form. It seems very majestic at the beginning, although the A section is melodically very advanced with its six sixth jumps and two fourths . The B part contains several septa and fifths . The text has been modified several times over the years.

Impact history

In 1941, after a dispute between the collecting society ASCAP and various radio stations , Ellington needed a new program because he played several nights at Casa Manana in Los Angeles and the program was broadcast live. Strayhorn took out his 1939 melody for this program and arranged it for the Ellington Orchestra. The melody was recorded by Ellington and his orchestra on February 15th. In July the piece hit the charts, where it stayed for seven weeks and climbed to eleventh place. It replaced the previous theme melody ( Sepia Panorama ). Ellington took up the piece again and again, for example in a chamber music version with Ellington on piano, Strayhorn on celesta and Oscar Pettiford on cello , with the orchestra and Betty Roche (1952) or with Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie (1957). On the album Duke Ellington and John Coltrane , the two musicians play a piece called Take The Coltrane , which builds on the standard.

As early as 1943 the piece was taken over by other performers; first it was sung by the vocal ensemble The Delta Rhythm Boys . Ella Fitzgerald often used Take the A Train as the opening track in her concerts. A wide variety of musicians such as Louis Jordan , Yusef Lateef , Sun Ra , Ran Blake , Joe Henderson , Jimmy Rowles ( Plays Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn , 1981), Bobby McFerrin (solo on The Voice ), the World Saxophone Quartet and Canadian Brass followed. The radio program Voice of America Jazz Hour of Willis Conover used it as the theme song. The importance of the composition for modern jazz was made clear by Charles Mingus when he in 1960 contrapuntally woven the theme of " Exactly Like You " into the melody .

In 1999, National Public Radio included the piece on the NPR 100 as one of the 100 greatest American pieces of music of the twentieth century .

Thomas Kerstan included the song in his canon for the 21st century in 2018 , a selection of works that "everyone should know" in his opinion.

Use in movies

The piece was used in the following feature and music films:

  • Reveille with Beverly (1943, Bette Roche, The Duke Ellington Orchestra)
  • Paris Blues (1961, Duke Ellington)
  • Mingus (1968, Charles Mingus)
  • Let's Spend the Night Together (1982, Duke Ellington and His Orchestra)
  • In the Mood aka The Woo Woo Kid (1987)
  • Radio Days (1987, Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra)
  • For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000, Irakere )
  • Catch Me If You Can (2002)
  • The Foam of the Days ( L'Écume des jours ) (2013)

Use on stage

Use in video games

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Jürgen Schaal: Jazz standards . 3. Edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1414-3 .
  2. ↑ cit. according to Schaal
  3. ↑ Strayhorn's compositions "Johnny Come Lately", "Chelsea Bridge", "Day Dream" and "After All." Mercer Ellington directed " Things Ain't What They Used to Be ", "Blue Serge" and "Moon Mist" for the occasion “At.
  4. ^ The 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century .
  5. ↑ Th. Kerstan: What our children need to know. A canon for the 21st century. Hamburg 2018. pp. 11, 73f.