Take the "A" Train Walking Bass Line
Billy Strayhorn wrote Take the "A" Train in 1939, and it became the signature tune of Duke Ellington's orchestra. The band's most famous recording of it was made on February 15, 1941, with Jimmy Blanton on bass. The lyric sends you uptown to Sugar Hill in Harlem on the A train, and the changes give a bass player long runs on one chord plus a D7 with a raised 11th in bars 3 and 4. Below you'll find the changes bar by bar in C and a walking line to play through them.
Turn the bass off and it's your gig: the piano and drums keep going and you walk the line. The band counts you in with one bar of hi-hat.
Recorded upright bass, grand piano and a jazz drum kit play the line. Tab is for 4-string bass in standard tuning.
The changes
We use the iReal Pro chart from its Jazz 1460 playlist, which matches Jazzadvice's bar for bar. Both write the chord in bars 3 and 4 as D7#11; jazzstandards.com calls it D7(b5), the same pitch spelled another way, and Learn Jazz Standards writes a plain D7. Learn Jazz Standards also adds A7 on the second half of bars 7 and 31, puts Gm7 C7 in the second bar of the bridge, and writes Cmaj7 where we have C6. iReal Pro adds G7b9 on the second half of bar 24.
How this line works
- The root lands on beat 1 of 17 of the 35 chord changes, so the harmony is clear. The rest start on the 3rd or 5th, which keeps the line from sounding like a list of roots.
- 34 of the 34 chord changes are approached by a half step or a whole step, so every new chord arrives smoothly instead of by a jump.
- Non-chord tones sit on the weak beats: 22 on beat 2 and 17 on beat 4. That's where passing and chromatic notes sound intentional instead of wrong.
- No note repeats back to back. A repeated note is the quickest way to make a walking line sound stiff.
What Take the "A" Train teaches you
- Long stretches on one chord: each A section opens with two bars of C6 and two bars of D7#11, and the bridge sits on Fmaj7 for four bars. That's eight or sixteen beats on one chord, so your line needs a direction, not a loop around the root.
- The D7#11: bars 3 and 4 are D7, the V of V, with the melody on its #11, G# (the same pitch as Ab, the flat 5th). D, E, F# and G# all come from the D whole-tone scale, and jazzstandards.com points out that whole-tone sound. Save A natural for somewhere else, because it rubs against that melody note.
- D7 turns into Dm7: in bar 5, D7 becomes Dm7, so F# drops a half step to F, and then G7 takes you home to C. The bridge ends the same way, with two bars of D7, then Dm7 and G7.
- A ii-V into the bridge: the second A ends Gm7 C7 instead of Dm7 G7. That's a ii-V in F, and the bridge starts on Fmaj7, the IV chord.
- A medium-up tempo: at 160 bpm and up, the line has to be clear, so chord tones on beats 1 and 3 and half steps into each change carry a lot of weight.
How to practice it
- Hear the form first. Turn the bass off and play just the root of each chord along with the band until you never lose your place.
- Read the line slowly. Set the tempo around 80 and play the written line with the drums. Slow is the fast way here.
- Loop the hard spots. Turn on Loop, find the four bars that trip you up, and play them until they feel like the easy ones.
- Make it yours. Keep beat 1 of every bar, but change the approach note on beat 4. A half step above, a half step below, a whole step: each one changes the color of the arrival.
- Play it with the record. Put on one of the versions below and play along. That's where the time feel gets into your hands.
Want to build your own lines on these changes? Try the free Walking Line Builder and practice with the click on 2 and 4.
Recordings to hear
- Duke Ellington, The Blanton-Webster Band (1941), with Jimmy Blanton on bass.
- Clifford Brown and Max Roach, Study in Brown (1955), with George Morrow on bass.
- Oscar Peterson, Oscar Peterson Plays the Duke Ellington Song Book (1960), with Ray Brown on bass.
Take the "A" Train: questions
What key is Take the "A" Train in?
C major. That's the key in the iReal Pro, Learn Jazz Standards and Jazzadvice charts, and Wikipedia and jazzstandards.com both describe it in C. Everything on this page is in C.
What's the form of Take the "A" Train?
It's 32 bars in AABA form. Each A goes C6, D7#11, Dm7 G7 and back to C. The bridge is four bars of Fmaj7, two of D7, then Dm7 and G7 to set up the last A.
How fast is Take the "A" Train usually played?
Charts mark it medium-up swing, which iReal Pro plays from 140 to 219 bpm. The line on this page is set at 160. If that's too fast for now, slow it down until every change lands clean, then bring it back up.
Your next step
This page gives you one line to study. These courses teach you to build your own, on the bass you play.
The 7-Day Walking Bass Breakthrough
Cole DavisWalk through any jazz tune with lines that move, swing, and never repeat themselves.
- Walk through any ii-V-I, major or minor.
- Solve the two-bar problem on static modal tunes.
- Never repeat yourself two bars in a row.
Walking Basslines on Upright Bass from the Beginning
Cole DavisFive lessons from “my walking lines don't sound like the records” to professional-grade walking.
- The chord first: the 1-3-5-7, where every great bass line starts.
- The master move: changing the order of the notes, bar by bar, on an F blues.
- The three questions every bass line has to pass, then the whole method on Autumn Leaves.
Not sure which course fits? Answer a few questions and we'll point you to one.