Hello !
The song “Take the A Train” is considered a classic in the jazz repertoire and it’s a must-know tune for any jazz musician.
It’s an upbeat tune that is great for practicing your timing and rhythm, and it’s also a great tune to practice walking basslines.
The song was written by Billy Strayhorn in 1939, and it became the signature tune of the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
“Take the ‘A’ Train” is a great tune to practice improvisation, it has a simple chord progression that can help you to work on your soloing skills. The melody is also easy to remember, which makes it a great tune to practice your interpretation and phrasing. It’s also a tune that many people know, so it’s a great choice for gigs or jam sessions.
In this lesson, we will be breaking down the melody, harmony, and form of the song, as well as discussing how to play it in different keys, how to play the melody and how to improvise over the chord progression.
In the beautiful, dare I say perfect, solo of Ella Fitzgerald, we learn how she improvises perfect 4-bar phrases, targets specific notes, how she uses scales, voice leading and motif developments.
In the PDF (concert, B-flat and E-flat) you will find the transcription, an exercise based on a motif from the solo and 3 phrases to transpose.
With the solo by Duke Ellington, we learn how he plays a lot with motifs, giving to his solo a great compositional dimension.
We get some pretty serious bebop ideas with the transcription of Harold Land!
By the end of this lesson, you will have a solid understanding of this classic jazz standard and be able to play it with confidence.
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 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
16 comments on “Take the A Train”
Quick break between private students: the etude + one chorus
I did use one of Coltrane’s favorite harmonic tricks.
What do you think it is?
Let me know in the comments and let’s see who wins 😉
Check out [Ludovic Imbert] playing by memory the Ella Fitzgerald solo:
Re: impro. Nice! Again your left hand is a bit heavy. you don’t have to play constantly, your left hand is accompanying your right hand, you could try a couple of different rhythmic patterns to get used to that.
Also try play a walking bass with the left hand and improvise with the right hand, that’s challenging!
Re: solo by Ella. Nice, your left hand here seems more comfortable! When you practice a transcription play it with the recording to get the details of articulations and rhythms.
Great job Gloria 🙂
Hi Gloria! great job! Regarding the mini impro: nice phrases, good time, I love that you used eighth note triplets. Your left hand could be a little more discreet maybe (think more rhythmic, shorter notes)
Re: the bass line. Great, just try to keep the quarter notes going. you can break it sometimes with different rhythms but here you overdid it a bit
Hi everyone! Here some videos From Take the A train. I Will be happy to hear any of your comments or suggestions.
Nice weekend 🙂
Here I am practicing a phrase by Harold Land:
Is ‘where am I?’ the number one question every aspiring jazz musician asks?!
ah ah well it was certainly my main question… and I still wonder today sometimes 😉
I did an aural transcription of Ella Fitzgerald’s Take the A Train melody and her solo before Alex posted his lesson and his written transcription. There are a few differences, but I got it mostly right :). Alex suggested I share it here, so here it is …
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vhIAs8vZE5qVBDr0STJQ-LTN3shaBPqg/view?usp=sharing
Bonjour Alex , il manque la version en Bb des PDF consacrés à “take the A train “!
Salut Stephane, elle ne manque pas, elle est sous la version E flat, l’intitulé est une erreur que je corrigerai
Take the A train : Chick Corea, Hubert Laws, McCoy Tiner, George Benson, Roland Kirk, etc… A TV show
Take The A train : duo flute / washboard (Urban Hansson)
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=HgiXRe7HUhw&list=RDAMVMHgiXRe7HUhw
Some other versions joe henderson https://youtu.be/Qf0alqRDi9I THE AMAZING KEYSTONE BIG BAND https://youtu.be/x34TOBSFuoQ Max Roach Clifford Brown https://youtu.be/nZY_u0XPD38