Take the A train by Rosena M. Hill Jackson, subtitled

"Take the 'A' Train" belongs to the genre Jazz Standard and was composed in 1939 by Billy Strayhorn. He composed it after Duke Ellington offered him 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. The directions began with the words "Take the A Train", referring to the then-new A subway service that runs through New York City. 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 later. The song was performed by Ellington and the band in the 1943 film Reveille with Beverly with vocalist Betty Roché. 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. It was the theme song of the Voice of America Jazz Hour, heard worldwide on shortwave radio, for many years. In 1999, National Public Radio (NPR USA) 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. Lyricist(s) Lee Gaines (1942); Joya Sherrill (1944) (compiled from Wikipedia) * After watching several videos of the song Take the A Train, I finally had to choose between a half a century old black and white video of black singers/musicians and a recent (colour) video with both black and white singers/musicians. I chose the latter, not only for the mixed race of the performers but also the highly improvised singing, the essential quality that made the successful song from mere directions to an address. All copyright belongs to the original owners. Subtitles added.